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Start a Top 5 for ItalianEditor’s picks
Press picks, until locals rank their own Top 5s. Sourced from the local food press. As seen in Portland Monthly and James Beard Foundation. Updated August 2026.
Nostrana · Buckman
Chef Cathy Whims, a multi time James Beard nominee, opened Nostrana in 2005 and built it around Oregon sourced ingredients, rotating seasonal pastas, and house stretched mozzarella pizzas. The kale pesto spaghetti and the Insalata Nostrana are treated as house icons two decades into its run.
Ava Genes · Richmond
Opened as a showcase for chef Joshua McFadden's vegetable forward cooking, Ava Gene's Roman inspired menu on SE Division turns produce into the main event, with dishes like carrots with brined almonds and a rotating salad flight. It remains one of the kitchens that shaped modern Portland dining.
Cafe Olli · King
Husband and wife chefs Siobhan and Taylor Manning build their Concordia restaurant around simple, seasonal, locally sourced cooking, with wood fired pizzas and handmade pastas leading a vegetable forward menu. The Mannings joined the James Beard Foundation's 2025 TasteTwenty cohort.
Maglia Rosa · Richmond
A Richmond pasta room built on house made noodles, with a beef and pork bolognese and a duck ragu lasagna as the two dishes most often recommended. It is a quieter, neighborhood scaled counterpart to the city's bigger name Italian rooms, focused tightly on its pasta program.
Fantino · Hosford-Abernethy
Known for immaculate bucatini and ravioli alongside house baked focaccia, Fantino keeps its pasta program tight and technique driven rather than sprawling, in a compact Hosford-Abernethy storefront that opened in the former Papa G's space. It is a small room built around precision.