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As a staple at Italian American restaurants across the country and especially in places like New York, New Jersey, and my home state of Rhode Island, Bolognese is a dish that always feels personal, like a signature offering. For serious Italian food lovers, it’s often the dish by which they judge the restaurant as a whole. This is partly because it varies so widely: Restaurants often riff on the humble dish of meat sauce (generally using beef and pork), making it an expression of their culinary approach.
These days, Portland is in the midst of its own Italian renaissance; maybe it’s part of a larger trend toward nostalgic comfort food and grandma-core (nonna-core?)—or just that big-portioned Italian joints present more value in a broken economy. The chefs and restaurateurs behind this trend mostly say it’s a coincidence, but clearly there is something in the pasta water. Either way, you’d better believe Bolognese is on the menu. I visited five restaurants that are each putting their own amore into Bolognese—including an old-school staple and a vegan option. This is a dish of love, so it’s fitting to highlight it just before Valentine’s Day.
The high-ceilinged yet cozy space of Monty’s Red Sauce may be the most committed among Portland’s new Italian restaurants to serve Americanized red-sauce Italian. In addition to heaping portions of meatballs, Parm, calamari and tiramisu, Monty’s offers not one but two Bolognese dishes. Served on top of melt-in-your-mouth gnocchi ($23) or smothering a cheesy baked ravioli ($23)—I prefer the latter—the Monty’s Bolognese, developed by co-owner and chef Sedona McCaffrey-Allen, skews closer to ragù, with the thick and savory sauce playing more of a starring role than the meat. Belly-warming and soul-satisfying, this is a good dish for someone who wants to dabble in meat sauce without going full carnivore. Maybe one day Monty’s will take a cue from the Jersey joints that inspired it and offer complimentary crusty Italian bread to sop up that leftover sauce. 6716 SE Milwaukie Ave., 971-288-5388, montysredsauce.co. 5–9 pm Sunday–Thursday, 5–10 pm Friday-Saturday.
While many of Portland’s newer Italian restaurants lean into the classic Americanized red-sauce aesthetic for their Bolognese, Maglia Rosa draws from the dish’s roots in Bologna. Of all the Bolognese I tried for this story, this sauce ($23) was my favorite, largely due to its elegant simplicity and high-quality ingredients. Chef Troy MacLarty’s sauce uses a “whisper of tomato” (his words) combined with ground pancetta, pork, beef and sofrito and cooked down until most of the liquid is gone. The mix is tossed into a pan to order, where he adds a meatball-size dollop of butter and cooks it up just enough to get a little saucy without drowning the tagliatelle, made fresh in-house using a mix of double zero and semolina flour and egg. Finished with a generous dusting of high-grade Bertinelli Parmesan, the dish finds each ingredient singing in harmony. The result is the kind of dish that lingers like a catchy song and leaves you thinking about each element. 3010 SE Division St., 503-477-6699, magliarosapdx.com. 11 am–9 pm Wednesday–Monday.
The menu at Lilla, a plant-based Italian joint in Buckman, might cause anyone even slightly familiar with the Italian obsession with meat and dairy to balk. But Naples-born chef and owner Pasquale Liotti works magic as he channels his culinary roots while putting fresh spins on a mix of classic and regional dishes. The Bolognese is served two ways here, with orecchiette pasta for lunch ($19) and pappardelle noodles for dinner ($27). I tried the latter and was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It was plenty hearty, and while I noticed the lack of fatty richness usually present in meat-based sauces, I hardly missed it. To replicate the meatiness, Liotti uses texturized vegetable protein that he hydrates and spices generously. All told, this is a fine place to bring your vegan and meat-loving friends alike. 960 SE Madison St., 971-275-4946, lillapdx.com. Noon–9 pm Monday–Sunday.
Sunday Sauce, which opened on Killingsworth in November 2025, takes inspiration from the food that co-owner Amanda Winquist grew up eating at family gatherings. Her Sunday Sauce ($28) is inspired by longtime traditions (she says the most important part is to use meat with bones in it); short ribs and spare ribs are always a favorite. The sauce is built from there and stewed all day; sausage and pan-fried meatballs are tossed in as well. The sauce is tangy and flavorful, sticking to the al dente rigatoni and hitting all the right notes, like a good Billy Joel song. The portion is lighter than what you might find in Winquist’s home state of New Jersey, but the big chunks of tender beef are plenty hearty and the variety of meats gives it a rich texture. Finishing it off is as comforting as a hug from your Italian auntie. 902 N Killingsworth St., 971-990-9441, sundaysaucepdx.com. 4–9 pm Wednesday–Sunday.
While the new wave of Italian restaurants grabs our attention, there are a handful of old-school joints worth visiting. Bocci’s Peace and Pasta answers the question of what can happen when fun-loving hippies offer their take on East Coast Italian. Funky décor, energetic music, and smiling servers have made this place quirky and welcoming for just around two decades. Sometimes you just want a mountain of spaghetti and meat sauce, and Bocci’s Bolognese ($22.75) is exactly that. Made with a mix of beef and pork with white wine and chicken stock, it has deep flavor with the perfect meat-to-sauce ratio. As far as American Italian food goes, this is about as classic as it gets and may even feed you for a couple meals. 1728 SE 7th Ave., 503-234-1616, boccispeaceandpasta.com. 4 pm–1 am Wednesday–Saturday, 4–11 pm Sunday.
