Red sauce and mozzarella? Is that how we riff on Italian-American cooking where Sunday iceberg salads and “parms” of every stripe are part of the all-star lineup? Or is it more to do with our preoccupation of kvelling over the gestalt of comfort food and the lack thereof when pointing to Portland restaurants that cater to this class of Italian cuisine?
Well wouldn’t you know I finally found it at a long-time Portland favorite road house where traditional Italian-American fare is served in abundance and style. Enter Bruno’s, owned by Bob Napolitano and aided by his son Dan. Dad started it all in the back of Micucci’s in the early 80s, moved around the Old Port as the brand grew and by 1999 found his way to the colonial looking structure in the bowels of Allen Avenue.
Bruno’s restaurant and tavern
Certainly it’s a stretch for peninsula purists to venture out there for lunch crawling along the Forest Avenue log jam. But come dinnertime, it’s easy sailing to Allen Avenue, about 2 1/2 miles from downtown Portland.
Bruno’s main dining room, top and bar/tavern, below
The menu is like a food tour of Naples to Palermo. All those great tomato-sauced –mozzarella dishes brought over to America and revamped show up here in spades. All the pastas are made in-house and served with tender cuts of veal and chicken and such other standbys as classic veal saltimbocca and pasta fagioli.
Bruno’s open kitchen
I mentioned to a friend of mine—a native Portlander—that I’d been to Bruno’s and loved it.
“What?” she barked, “It’s awful. Where’s the nuance?”
Wrong.
If you want nuance then you go to Piccolo for Damian Sansonetti’s divinely wrought regional Italian cooking. But for the hail and hearty, there aren’t too many places left that serve Italian-American cooking as well as Bruno’s does. Espo’s doesn’t rate unless you crave boulder-size meatballs with leftovers stuffed into Styrofoam boxes. Or Casa Novello used to be wonderful, but on my last visit (about a year ago) it didn’t fare that well.
Besides, the space at Bruno’s is very attractive. Soft jazz plays over the sound system. And the big square dining room with its half-open kitchen is painted in a mellow gray-beige while the tavern room looks very glamorous in a Las Vegas sort of way, with big round tufted banquettes along one wall and the bar where the neighborhood elite meet, drink and eat.
Cannelloni stuffed with lobster and shrimp in a tomato cream sauce was a special that night
Four of us went there for dinner on Tuesday night of Thanksgiving week to arrive at a packed dining room and tavern.
Our waiter–on the job for 17 years and also the restaurant’s pastry chef—guided us expertly through the big menu.
Clockwise, iceberg lettuce salad with blue cheese dressing, baked stuffed clams and the house special eggplant parm
From the baked stuff local clams to the house salad with iceberg to classic veal parm, chicken Marsala, cannelloni stuffed with lobster, fettucine arogoste with Maine lobster and shrimp to Italian fennel sausages grilled with peppers and onions, everything was lusty and good. Yes, the portions are big and the food is so good it’s worth the indulgence.
Top: veal parmigiana with ziti; bottom, left to right, grilled sausage and peppers, fettuccine arogoste and chicken marsala
Unbeknownst to us the owner and his son were sitting at a table behind us to hear all of our food exultations. He stopped by and said we must have the eggplant parmigiana. And so we did. Lightly breaded and sautéed and finished off in a rich, fresh and summery tomato sauce covered with melted mozzarella, it was a fine dish.
Of course we had to try dessert and our waiter/pastry chef recommended the pumpkin maple cheesecake. It looked beautiful and was a thoroughly luxurious ending to a formidable meal.
Homemadae maple pumpkin cheesecake
Sometime on a cold wintry night I’ll find myself there again to linger over chicken piccata, shrimp scampi, lasagna, spaghetti and meatballs or the various preps of parm and think that the drive to and fro was well worth the effort for such wholesome, good cooking.
Bruno’s Restaurant and Tavern, 33 Allen Ave., Portland, ME 207-878-9511 www.brunosrestauranttavern.com
Rating: 4 stars for big food, Italian-American classics done well
Ambiance: gracious in the dining room; a lively scene in the Tavern
Tables: well spaced and comfortable
Service: excellent
Noise: moderate
$$$: moderate, most entrees in the $16 to $20 range
