For A Great Food Weekend Visit Providence, America’s Comeback City

01.04.2024 - 11:45 / forbes.com

In 2013, Angel Taveras, the Mayor of Providence, RI, acknowledged his city’s troubled past, explained his efforts to turn things around, and noted that “with the help of our residents, our city workers and unions, our colleges and universities, our health care institutions, we have made great progress and are well on our way to becoming America’s comeback city.”

Turns out he was right.

A decade later, United Airlines passengers and the readers of Hemispheres, United’s inflight magazine (which I contribute to occasionally but not about Providence), voted it Best Up-and-Coming City 2023. Since I live in New England but had not been to Providence since before Mayor Taveras’ proclamation, I decided it was time to return and check out the progress. I visited earlier this year, and wow, I was impressed.

Among the recent attributes Hemispheres cited were notable new hotels and a greatly upgraded dining scene with several James Beard Award nominees, including multiple Best Chef Northeast kudos, especially impressive given the region’s larger cities.

It was the food scene that wowed me the most, and there is no doubt that the lodging choices, especially at the high end, are dramatically improved. But the real difference is a change in attitude. What I recall as depressed areas are now vibrant neighborhoods, much of the riverfront has been redeveloped, it’s a great walking town, and everyone seems to be vividly aware that the city is in the midst of a great revival. I have a friend who went to Brown, an Ivy League school and the highest profile of the many major universities in the city, in the Eighties, and now has two children there and returns often. She, like me, is amazed at the transformation since she spent years living there, and told me it was a night and day improvement. My niece is a professor at Brown—and dedicated foodie—and she feels the same way, like she is caught up in a tidal wave of great dining choices. A friend of mine who works in the pharmaceutical industry and has frequent business trips to Boston told me he recently used his free time to take the Amtrak train from Boston to Providence just to eat, which is saying something.

“Growing up here, then moving away to work in fine dining in New York City and Colorado, then coming back, it’s just amazing. All these new chefs are doing passion projects, and during the pandemic everyone came together,” Robert Andreozzi told me. One of the city’s James Beard Best Chef nominees, Andreozzi is chef and co-owner of Pizza Marvin, which opened in early 2021. “There’s just so much energy and so many more great places to eat, there’s never been anything like it here.”

At first glance Pizza Marvin is a clone of an old school, mom and pop New York-style