Pazzo

Great for happy hour in the bar, good pizzas, and they used to have some of the best bread around (pepadew pepper). However they no longer bake their bread in house, and this is a miss for us. It’s yummy food, but I think there is better Italian in town at a more reasonable price. This is a great place for trying to impress or a business meeting, old school great service, big comfy booths, classy.

We came in here a few times during our short vacation.
We shared the sausage pizza, and mozzarella-​sardine-​sandwich with pesto, and a caesar salad. We popped in here after dinner for a nightcap. Our bartender was cool, from Pittsburgh, and he chatted with us. he was good-​natured about us coming in right at last call. Made us feel welcome. I can’t wait to come back!

On my second meal in Portland, my roommie and I decided to Unilocal an Italian joint to visit for dinner. We came across this place and it was fairly close to our hotel!
The place is interesting. Walk in and head to the left, you’ll hit their bar. To the right, there’s a dining area and to the back you have more dining and upstairs is a pool bar area with the bathrooms. Lots of space. Our server was nice. He never once gave me eye contact which I thought was weird but not rude at all. I just prefer looking at someone when I asked them questions. Aside from that, here’s what I had:
–Risotto of the day, seasonally inspired for around $ 25-​$ 30. My risotto just happened to a shrimp risotto. First off, I love that it’s a seasonal dish and the items in the risotto is regularly different. Risotto is such a universal dish and should be treated that way, so good job. My particular dish had tons of perfectly cooked shrimp and the risotto was al dente, the way it should be cooked, so overall, success.
This place was pleasant and served good food. In the future, I wouldn’t mind coming back on my next trip to Portland.

I was in town for vacation and thought this looked like a fun place to try. The restaurant itself is very classy — we were seated comfortably in a booth. The waiter we had was a little bit strange. I am all about customer service and having plates taken away, water refilled, checking in, but this almost seemed like excessive checking in (not an observation I’ve had at any other restaurant before). After taking our order and waiting for our food to arrive, we were checked in on at least 5 times — reassuring us that the food would be coming soon. This was just a little bit odd.
The food itself was just alright.
The calamari appetizer was OK — I typically prefer my calamari a little more heavily breaded, and this was breaded lightly with fine crumbs.
I had the pappardelle, which was also just OK. The noodles were a little gummy and the meat sauce tasted a little bit bland. I had to add quite a bit of salt and pepper.
We were full after the meal, but there was nothing that really knocked our socks off. And for the price tag, we left the restaurant feeling a little disappointed.

I enjoyed everything about our dinner out here. Even the bread was delicious. We were seated quickly, with a reservation and service was friendly and prompt. The environment is great for a date night. My husband enjoyed a cocktail to start (Monkey’s Business) and I indulged in a tasty raspberry Italian cream soda. We skipped an appetizer, as we saw a nearby table get a large delicious looking dessert that we wanted to have room for. The pork cheeks and pappardelle were both fantastic entrees– we were very full from the portions but managed room for desserts. We tried the banana caramel trifle and the chocolate hazel nut cake. While I’m a big chocolate lover and the cake was good, I was blown away by the banana trifle– highly recommend. Overall we’ll definitely be backX

The duck dish was delicious! The other dish we had was the seared ahi, good also. Special minestrone was delicious and also had the butter lettuce radicchio salad, felt as though the butter lettuce was just okay.

Lovely atmosphere, warm and cozy on rainy Portland nights. Unfortunately the food wasn’t what I had been hoping for.
Good.
1. Steak was cooked nicely, juicy and well seasoned.
Not so good
1. All the sides (sauteed greens and potatoes) were a salt bomb! I have never tasted anything so salty in a long time. Guzzled 2 glasses of water after taking a few bites. My friend’s food was extremely salty as well.
2. Risotto was very spicy and overly salty as well.
3. The price in comparison to the quality of the meal was a bit lopsided. Perhaps the $ 20 per entrée range would be more suitable for the quality of food we received.
4. Waitress seemed to either be hating her life or on a lot of cold medicine since she seemed a million miles away.
Will I try Pazzo again, not for the food but it seems like a nice place for a cocktail or Tinder meet up.

Beautiful restaurant! The bread was good and the salad was the best caesar salad I have ever eaten. The Mezza Luna pasta was horrible and tasted like salt water, however they very graciously took it back at no charge and exchanged it for the Pappardelle (which was one of the best pastas I have ever had the pleasure of eating!) I would definitely return.

Wow is this place expensive for so-​so pasta. I think your paying for the ambience and location… which is nice… food not so much.

Pazzo is timeless.
My usual: a couple beers or cocktails on a whim while downtown. The best surprise: their nice menu offering during happy hour.
Bartenders have been here for a long time. Very accommodating.
Classic Bar: and very expansive bar, restaurant seating.
I’ve had an exceptional plate of Oysters from the Oregon Coast as well as Pizza.
Will makes a decadent Spanish Coffee.

omg. i ordered what seemed like an innocent bottle of campo di sasso super tuscan and THEN EVERYTHING TOOK FRIGGIN FOREVER. they were out of the sasso. they were out of the next selection too — they gave me the wrong wine list. when we finally found a bottle that they had it also took forever to get to our table. entrees — took forever. i had the gnocchi and i didnt like it. dunno, i like the idea of gnocchi because you’d think potato pasta is more nuroushing than flour pasta, but i’m not sure i’ve ever had a gnocchi dish i like. so i guess i could add another star for that — but this was a long meal. my friends got the parapadelle and ate it all up. huh.
my friend got a cesar salad and added anchovies. they werent very well presented on the salad — just plopped the anchovies on top of there — whats up with that? not gonna use a knife or something? if you dont use knives back there then what took so long?
i went with a two star rating — but it was a high 2. like almost a 3.

Just had brunch there on Saturday, and it was so good. The service was excellent! I will be going back soon.

I went in and sat at the bar. Bartender was very nice, professional and efficient. I had the tuna. It was busy for a Thursday night, but he kept my drink topped off and explained stuff so I knew what to order.

This place comes off as an upscale dining establishment but their lunch servers (ours, certainly) don’t meet that standard. We were seated quickly and there were only a few other patrons besides us; some who came in after us. I was given the wrong menu which I wasn’t aware of until my companion and I started comparing menu items. We got the attention of the waitress who rushed by us with a brusque ‘I’ll be back shortly.’. There was no shortly. After a very long wait where she passed by our table several times, we again flagged her down. She got me the correct menu and we proceeded to choose our lunch items. How she disappeared so often and for so long, I will never know. Her station (by the line) was right next to us yet she was never around. We had to pester her to order, to get boxes for leftovers, for our checks. It was a long excruciating dining experience for no discernible reason.
I had the Margherita Pizza which as limp and unappetizing. I’ve never had one that didn’t have fresh mozzarella slices and this one did not. My companion had a squash and fontina grilled cheese with truffle oil aioli and mushrooms. She loved it.
Would not go back for the terrible service alone.

Food: Yum!
Service: Meh.
My boyfriend and I were visiting Portland and were craving a light dinner of some wood fire pizza. Pazzo came up during our search, and we were excited to go as it seemed to review very well! When we arrived it was a bit fancier than we had anticipated, but that was okay. We were seated promptly, and our service was great … right up until we ordered. When we ordered just one pizza for the two of us to share, the server looked at us for a moment and then asked «Is that all?» There was a level of disdain in her voice which was really off putting. Clearly this is the sort of place where you’re expected to order their most expensive entrees, and ordering anything less is unacceptable. We did end up ordering a Caesar salad as well, after she asked us again «Are you sure you don’t want to order anything else?»
Throughout the course of our dinner, our server didn’t come by to ask us how everything was, nor did she ask if we enjoyed our meal afterward, and simply dropped our cheque on the table. Needless to say, her rudeness resulted in a less than stellar tip. I don’t think that it’s good form for a server to treat customers who aren’t paying as much for their meal like they’re beneath them. We weren’t terribly hungry, and we just wanted some pizza, this should not have resulted in sub-​par service. Thankfully, our delicious meal made up for the service, but not by much.
I’d recommend this place, but only if you’re prepared to make it rain.

Ate here for a business dinner and it was a great experience. The gnocchi with beets, truffle, Gorgonzola dolce dish was
.zing! I would go back just for that (actually I did a few days later and got it to go.) You think gnocchi with beets – that’s an odd combination. And I would totally agree but it’s also a DELICIOUS combination.
I also had the halibut, which was unfortunately extremely overcooked and a bit too salty for my taste. The homemade tiramisu was excellent though. I wouldn’t recommend the pizza; not bad, just not good enough for the price and better options available in Portland. Service was on point. I’d say a solid 3.5 stars but I rounded up for that gnocchi dish because I’m still thinking about it. Mmmmmm.

Pazzo Ristorante featured two highly recommended oven baked pizzas. The mushroom with truffles was stupendous and the pizza margarita with Mozzarella, ricotta, garlic, rosemary, and olive oil boasted a perfectly poached egg on top. The salads are big enough to split, although we would have liked more anchovies. Brian, our waiter, made a fabulous margarita using fresh squeezed lime juice with no sweet and sour added. Terrific waiter! The fresh bread on the table is served with really tasty olive oil and balsamic. The vibe is hip. Creative sandwiches, great service, and delicious drinks. What more could we want?

3 ½ to be fair. Just didn’t make it to 4 stars as it had no wow factor to it. I got the ahi and it was good, pretty basic. Meat and cheese appears really good
. Wine reasonable and priced well. Service was good

Okay place. Was staying at the hotel and had a bite to eat here. I had breakfast one day and dinner a different day. I really enjoyed the breakfast. I had some eggs, toast and ham. The toast was a walnut toast and it was very tasty. The eggs were good too. However to mess up eggs and ham.. . you really have to try.
I also had dinner there too. There is a okay vibe in the restaurant. It is on the street so you can people watch as you eat and the lighting was a little brighter that I would have expected. I had one of their pizzas. It was the pepperoni pizza. It had a nice tasty outside crust, however the rest of the pizza was not that great, kind of soggy. I would not recommend their pizzas. I thought the menu was a little limited. I would personally rather have a lot more variety. There was too much seafood dishes on the menu and not enough variety in non-​seafood dishes. I do like seafood, but this day I was not feeling it and found it hard to find something else.
Overall I would say it seems this place does breakfast, but not really a great place for dinner. They need to work on food quality and producing a better menu with more interesting dishes.

We came in for a late dinner and were able to get a table outside. The weather was nice, so it was a good night to eat and enjoy the views of the city. As you would expect with most Italian restaurants they bring fresh bread to the table. The bread was good, especially with a little olive oil.
For my meal I chose the Tagliatelle. It is a veal, pork and beef ragu, Bolognese style with tomato and parmesan cheese. The portion was good sized. The combination of meats went well with the sauce and pasta. It had dynamic flavor.
We were tired so I chose a cappuccino instead of wine. The cappuccino was good, but I would have liked to try some of the wines.
Overall this is a good place for dinner. The food is priced in line with what you get. Our server was very friendly and attentive.