Skip to main content"We do not promise to serve authentic Italian food," reads the menu at Mama Mia Trattoria, "but we promise to serve authentic southern Italian soul food." So restaurateur Lisa Schroeder's newest joint isn't so much an Italian restaurant as an archetypal simulacrum of one, with roots that run more to Little Italy than Milano. It's the stuff of EPCOT Center fantasy, filtered through the same sensibility that has made Schroeder's flagship down the block, Mother's Bistro, a comfort foodie's paradiso.
The pervading sense of fantasy begins in a brothel. Schroeder says that once she settled on a red-and-gold color scheme for Mama Mia, she thought of a bordello, and she's made good on that look. Seventeen chandeliers hang from the ceilings, their crystal prisms throwing colored light onto the gilded mirrors and deep-red walls below. The bathrooms feature copper sinks in armoire casings bedecked with mirrored gold tiles. All of this creates an ambience of indulgence gone ripe on the vine, but the opulent setting is compromised by the noise in the dining room, which is appointed with closely packed tables, no booths. In any pantheon of comfort food, the seating should be comfortable, too.
Among the starters, the Caesar salad ($6.95) is only ho-hum, while the fried calamari ($8.50) is excellent, crispy but not too crunchy, enlivened by a marinara dipping sauce that bites ever-so-gently back, thanks to an inspired dash of red pepper. The caprese salad ($8.95) of fresh housemade mozzarella is nicely tangy, the best appetizer on the menu.
Pastas are cooked an agreeable smidgen beyond al dente in deference to American tastes. Echoing the daily mac-'n'-cheese special at Mother's, Mama Mia offers lasagna del giorno ($10.95), which on a recent visit could have had less sausage and more sauce. The sauce itself needed a kick, like that offered by the pepper in the calamari dipping sauce. The eponymous sauce in the linguine bolognese ($12.95) doesn't usurp the title of Portland's reigning bolognese, which to my taste is served by Piazza Italia in the Pearl. Mama Mia stews beef, pork, veal, onions, carrots, garlic and tomato sauce for two and a half hours, but the mix seems to call for another hour on the stove; as is, the flavors don't mingle sufficiently. No such caveat, however, for the restaurant's signature dish, Grandma Mary's Sunday Gravy ($12.95), an ambrosial simmering of meatballs, pork and sausage, slow-cooked in tomato sauce and served atop penne pasta.
While the eggplant parmigiana ($11.95) and several pastas offer a nod to vegetarians, Mama Mia caters to meat eaters, particularly that most ruthless specimen of hedonistic carnivore, the veal lover. There are five veal preparations here: piccata, milanese, francese, Marsala and the old standby, parmigiana (each $17.95). As a general rule, veal served in this country can be spotty in quality, either not tender enough or riddled with gristle or fat, and Mama Mia's offerings are no exception. While the scallopine picatta tartly juxtaposed capers, lemon and butter, I had to spit some fat out into my napkin, never a pleasant moment in the middle of a conversation. The parmigiana cutlet should have been thicker and the sauce needed more flavor, while neither dish was tender enough to be cut with fork only.
Portions here are generous, so by the time dessert ($5.50) rolls around, you should steer clear of the rich tartuffo and tiramisu and opt for a selection of homemade sorbetti. I had a medley of mango, strawberry and pineapple, the latter of which offered a particularly intense flavor, while its freshness and spot-on icy consistency rivaled any sorbet I've tasted on the West Coast.
The restaurant offers a late-night menu until 2:30 am Wednesdays to Saturdays, which includes minestrone soup ($3), fried zucchini ($3), and pizza margherita ($10). "So if I stumbled in here at 2:25 in the morning," I asked, "and ordered a pizza, could I get it?"
"You betcha," came the unhesitant reply. "We're steady Eddie here. When we say you can order 'til closing, we mean it."
From the top down, this brand of bonhomie suffuses Mama Mia. Schroeder visited each table every night I dined there, chatting people up and asking about the food. She's a chef with the culinary know-how, vision and location to flesh out the fantasy behind Mama Mia's ambitions. As it stands now, there are areas for improvement--among them the lackluster sauces and the less-than-comfortable dining room--but Portland's culinary godmother has what it takes, if anybody does, to tackle these troubles and nurture her newest baby into a local classic.
Mama Mia gets its small-screen debut on Opening Soon, a Canadian TV Food Network reality show, at 3 pm Sunday, Nov. 21, on the Fine Living Channel (digital cable 184).
Mama Mia Trattoria, 439 SW 2nd Ave., 295-6464. 11:30 am-3 pm Monday-Friday, 5-10 pm daily. Late-night menu until 2:30 am Wednesday-Saturday nights. Credit cards accepted. No checks. $$. Moderate.
Picks: caprese salad, calamari, Grandma Mary's Sunday Gravy, sorbetti.
Head bartender Steve Potter delivers some tasty specialty cocktails ($5.50-$10), including the chocolaty Mona Lisa, a freshly puréed peach Bellini, and the Botticelli, a blending of Lambrusco, orange juice and Grand Marnier--sangria with a Neapolitan accent.
The Italian- and California-leaning wine list tends toward the spendy side, with prices ranging from $24 to $72 per bottle, $6 to $15 per glass. One good deal is the house Chianti ($8 a glass), which for the price was well-rounded and had a surprisingly complex nose.
WWeek 2015