Solo Italiano ★ 4.3
Solo Italiano on Commercial Street, since 2016, from Chef Paolo Laboa. Genovese cooking with house-made pastas, breads and pesto from a stone mortar.
Leeward is an italian fine-dining restaurant in Portland.
Editorially verified May 31, 2026 by Lewis Vaughan, TableJourney editor. Source.
Address: 85 Free Street, Portland, ME 04101
Solo Italiano on Commercial Street, since 2016, from Chef Paolo Laboa. Genovese cooking with house-made pastas, breads and pesto from a stone mortar.
Via Vecchia on Dana Street in the Old Port, a brick-and-ivy small-plates Italian room with handmade pasta, Maine seafood and a velvet-booth wrap-around bar.
Izakaya Minato on Washington Avenue, since 2017, from Thomas Takashi Cooke. A small izakaya with binchotan-grilled yakitori, donburi and a sake list.
Fore Street has been Portland's flagship wood-fired dining room since 1996, with a wood-burning oven, open hearth and turning spit at the kitchen's heart.
Twelve at Portland Foreside, opened 2022 by Prentice Hospitality and now led by Chef Hannah Ryder, runs a Maine tasting menu on Thames Street.
Central Provisions at the top of Fore Street, opened 2014 by Chris and Paige Gould (Beard nominee), with rotating small plates of crudo and pork belly.