Celebrating Fifty Years of Sicilian-Style Seafood

“Serving seafood lovers from around the world since 1973!”

Five decades later, The Daily Catch^TM continues to set the bar for exceptional New England Seafood. The original location in Boston’s North End (Little Italy) opened in 1973 by my father, Paul Freddura, a first-generation Sicilian American. It was the early 70’s, and out of this ‘shoe box storefront’, he started frying squid, calling it calamari! Paul’s fish market and raw bar featured underutilized local seafood at a time when prices for fried clams were sky-high! 

It wasn’t long after Paul met Maria from upstate NY in 1979. Together, they transformed this storefront into a tiny eatery known as the Calamari Cafe, complete with checkered tablecloths in an open kitchen. A menu was created featuring their proprietary calamari offerings: fried calamari, stuffed calamari, calamari meatballs, marinated calamari salad, and calamari with linguine. Skillfully executed by Paul and Chef Anthony Lombardo, Maria’s brother.

This was a time for innovation, introducing pasta in the pan, which included their infamous clams and linguine, freshly shucked from the shell! Maria and Paul hustled up and down the East Coast at fairs and festivals, marketing their calamari products available at The Daily Catch and for wholesale and retail trade. Continuing this wave of innovation, in 1985, they embarked on creating and promoting Black “Squid Ink” Pasta! My parents were so ahead of their time. In 1987, Time Magazine captioned it the most esoteric food of the year. Black Pasta remains a culinary sensation seducing people from around the world.

The collage above is a collection of newspaper articles and reviews published throughout the years. If you look closely, you can see the history of calamari unfolding as our family and business grew. After five decades and ten restaurant openings, The Daily Catch and the Freddura Family remain true to our core values and Sicilian-style recipes. My brothers Maximilian, Basil, Theo, Sage, Sebastian, Louis, and I are so proud of our parents for their pioneering energy and the preservation of The Daily Catch as a culinary seafood institution in Boston. With the utmost respect and pride - Dominic Freddura No. 7