Piccolo

The Brunch Report: And the winner is . . .

February 22, 2026 / / Uncategorized

Of all the great brunches that I’ve featured in The Brunch report, my latest foray tipped the scales. And if there were any contest at all The Winner Is . . .Caiola’s. Perhaps it’s especially so with the kitchen being manned by its new sous chef, Matt Seitz, who took over Nick Ryder’s reign when he moved to Colorado late last year. Of course chef supreme and co-owner Abby Harmon still leads the team with her inimitable flair for flavor and texture in each dish.

I’m hesitant to proclaim one restaurant’s superiority over the other. Caiola’s, however, has consistently come up with different brunch specials every week, creating dishes that are novel and ultimately lip-smacking good, the sort of restorative food that you want for that first meal on a Sunday.

Brunch lineup: baked eggs with roasted tomatoes, ham and white bean stew; perfect bloody Mary and maple bacon added to the dish

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Bruno’s: one of the last bastions in Portland for Italian-American Cooking done with abundant style

November 27, 2025 / / Discoveries, Restaurants

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

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Two very unusual cookbooks on the shelves now, and a third, Rachel Ray’s latest (her 22nd book) merits attention

November 4, 2025 / / Discoveries, Recipes

Two totally different cookbooks are worth looking at because the collections are so unusual. The first is from southern chef John Currence, a James Beard winner and his book. Pickles, Pigs and Whiskey. He owns several restaurants in the south, most notably his City Grocery in Oxford, Mississippi. He grew up in New Orleans, but his ideologies span the culinary globe. Consider this bon mot: ‘Where there is rosemary…let there be lemon.”

Pickles, Pigs and Whiskey by John Currence (photo of book cover)

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Preview Popup: High expectations at Roustabout

October 2, 2025 / / Restaurants

The chatter on Roustabout-set to open sometime this fall along Washington Avenue (East Bayside’s neo-hipster iteration of Middle Street’s restaurant row)-is that it will feature Italian-American cuisine or, as later amended, a modern-day version thereof. I’ve been looking forward to getting carefully crafted veal Parm, lasagna, spaghetti with Sunday sauce and meatballs. But now I’m not so sure if that’s what the place will deliver. (Early menus posted on Instagram several months ago showed a menu of rustic Italian dishes.)

Instead, if it’s any indication, the extraordinary meal I had at this fledgling’s latest collaborative popup dinner on Tuesday night at Piccolo (what a collaboration!), veal Parm, et al, may wait in the wings.

The avid dining scene at the Roustabout popup held at Piccolo; bottom right, co-partner Kip Paschal

Admittedly it’s untimely to review a restaurant before its front doors have opened for business. But in the case of Roustabout, they’ve made their proverbial splash already after two popup dinners. The first was at Tandem Bakery (menu: lasagna, Caesar salad, garlic bread, and tiramisu) which I did not attend, and now the second unwrapping at Piccolo, which I attended.

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Brunch that gratifies: new, novel and/or noteworthy

September 21, 2025 / / Restaurants, Uncategorized

French toast made with corn bread? A new twist on eggs Benedict as though an old faithful really needs twisting and shaking? Sometimes it’s the tried and true that is the most satisfying. Then, again, when you experience a dish that’s truly novel that’s cause for culinary celebration, too.

I made the happy error of mixing up my brunch dates thinking that yesterday—Sunday—was the date for a brunch I was invited to. I looked up the email invitation and saw that it was for next Sunday.

Piccolo’s dining bar and wine rack

But I was all psyched for brunch without a destination. Though my favorite spots like Caiola’s or Sur-Lie beckoned I decided to go to someplace I’d not been to in a while.

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Weekend brunch, Portland: Are you still standing on line to get in?

September 14, 2025 / / Restaurants

From the divine dining annals of Middle Street (Eventide, Duckfat, East Ender, et al) to the proprietors on the four corners of Longfellow Square, the legion of brunch buckaroos waiting on line to get into Portland’s trendiest eateries has spiraled to new highs. All that craving rush for variations on eggs Benedict or the latest take on tater tots define this culinary madness.

The hot spots, Local 188, Eventide, East Ender and Duckfat

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Central Provisions: Still just about being the best restaurant in Maine

August 28, 2025 / / Restaurants

Deep down in its warped well of vocabulary wisdom the Urban Dictionary defines foodie as “a douchebag who likes food.” If that’s the case then Portland’s streets are teeming with them, and the general wisdom is for us locals to stay away from our most formidable dining haunts until the turistas all leave in the next 30 to 60 days. In fact, one local savant confided that he won’t step foot into a place like the revered Central Provisions until the masses go home. Indeed, it may be that of all the new restaurants in our dining world, the one that lives up so supremely to its accolades is the venerable Central Provisions.

The serious look of diners at Central Provisions seated at the dining bar facing the open kitchen; lower right, chef Chris Gould

I wasn’t planning to visit there until the fall, but destiny prevailed as a parking spot opened up a few doors away while cruising down Fore Street during the lunch hour earlier this week. I took this as my cue to enter this bastion of gastronomy for a bite of lunch.

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Sunday brunch carries on vividly at many Portland restaurants-but there’s one that’s a real standout!

July 20, 2025 / / Restaurants

The finest culinary minds take the art of cooking to new levels even when the dialectic of simple versus grand is a basic conundrum. But consider another possibility in our flavor domain: weird—or deliciously weird. It’s one thing to spiral high over an incredibly flavorful dish when the sum of its ingredients are unique. But then there’s the far-out mother of invention taking hold and you, as a diner, encounter something so completely different. These revelations don’t often occur at brunch, the superciliousness of a meal that occurs mostly on Sundays. The progression of mimosas and bloody’s, all kinds of eggs Benedict and omelets, pancakes and French toast or just plain old bagels and “lox” (as it’s still known in Manhattan circles) are often mundane and predictable even if comfort-food good.

An old Caiola’s favorite, The Hot Brown

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