Cuisines:
Italian
Nostrana’s love letter to regional Italian cooking
and Neapolitan pizza is a vision of Portland: a local legend (former Genoa co-owner Cathy Whims) cooking the food she loves at moderate prices, sophistication without the pretention, a devotion to local farms and purveyors. This is Italian home cooking as it should be—stripped down, honest, powered by wood fire. No place in Portland is better suited to please a diverse crowd: foodies, kids, wine lovers, your adventure-fearing relatives. The mandatory preamble is the Caesar-esque insalata Nostrana. Pasta with tomato butter embodies the joy of simple purity, but desserts—hot-from-the-oven fruit crisps and intensive chocolate bodino—can make you gasp. Lunch is one of the city’s best-kept secrets, and the bistecca alla Fiorentina is arguably the city’s best steak: 2.2 pounds, wrist-thick, cooked over oak fire, and big enough for four.
Updated 04/19/2013
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