A few years ago, after dinner at a nearby fine-dining restaurant, I wandered into Dimo’s Apizza in search of carbs.
There was nothing overly fancy about the pasta that day, a plain bowl of what I assumed (incorrectly) to be store-bought bucatini, guanciale and tomato under a shower of grated cheese. But it was tasty, a pasta you could imagine finding at an East Coast pizzeria where the cook had spent a summer or two in Rome.
If you know Dimo’s Apizza, it’s probably because of the pizza, with its two-oven baking process — electric and wood-fired —jury-rigged to recreate the deeply charred flavor of New Haven’s famous coal oven pizzerias. Or it might be for the weekly sandwich specials made on house-baked sesame seed baguettes, which have their own following.
[Read more: The 15 best pizzerias in Portland, the greatest pizza city in the world]
Since that day two years ago, I’ve enjoyed the restaurant’s pasta several times. The bouncy rigatoni in a spicy vodka sauce with prim little sprigs of basil poking from the top. Or the “specials” — spaghetti slicked with zesty lemon cream sauce, lumache (little shells) with cima di rapa, Italian sausage and a scattering of crunchy bread crumbs — that tend to stick around for a while.
Dimo’s … Apasta? Spicy rigatoni alla vodka and a spaghetti al limone “special” that seems to have stuck around for a while.Michael Russell | The Oregonian
I should have known that Miriello, a Connecticut-born chef who came to Portland after working at the breezy Venice Beach, California bakery-restaurant Gjusta, would treat the pasta with as much care as the pizza. For that eye-opening amatriciana, Dimo’s made its own bucatini, as it does all the pastas. The guanciale was house-cured. The cheese grated to order, a light dusting compared to the more than 200 pounds of Pecorino and Grana Padano grated fresh here each week.
All that labor adds up to pastas in the $20-$22 range, higher than the fast-casual Grassa, an angel hair above the sitdown restaurant Montelupo, but less than the likes of more upscale Italian restaurants a Cena, Campana, or Nostrana. Price aside, Dimo’s is an easy pick for any Portland pasta top five, and likely the most underrated part of the restaurant.
Lumache — little shells — with house-made Italian sausage, cima di rapa (aka rapini), and bread crumbs at Dimo’s Apizza.Michael Russell | The Oregonian
And starting as soon as next month, pasta will play a more prominent role at Dimo’s Italian Specialties, a new Italian deli, market, bar and restaurant opening next door. By day, the space — like Dimo’s Apizza, part of the former Burnside Brewing building — will serve Roman-style pizza bianca slices and sandwiches, pasta kits, olive oil, wine and more from the deli and market. Three nights a week, the back room will operate as a “white tablecloth supper club,” serving braised veggies, stuffed pastas, whole branzino and good steaks seared in a Spanish coal-fired oven.
Dimo’s Apizza’s pastas are served from 4 to 9 p.m. Monday-Wednesday and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday-Sunday at 701 E. Burnside St., 503-327-8968, dimosapizza.com. Check back later this week for more on Dimo’s Italian Specialties, chef Doug Miriello’s upcoming Italian deli, market, bar and supper club.
— Michael Russell; mrussell@oregonian.com
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