What are the opening hours?

Tuesday 4:30pm - 9:30pm Wednesday 4:30pm - 9:30pm Thursday 4:30pm - 9:30pm Friday 4:30pm - 9:30pm Saturday 4:30pm - 9:30pm Sunday 4:30pm - 9:30pm

Solo Italiano

Name: Solo Italiano
Address: 100 Commercial Street, Portland, ME, 04101, US
Telephone: +12077800227
Price range: $$$
Rating: 4.7

Featuring Paolo Laboa, international chef from Genoa, Italy. Solo Italiano combines the traditional with the modern, Maine freshness with Genovese flavor.
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Paolo Laboa’s journey started in his mothers kitchen, where he learned the secrets of real Genovese cooking, the pinnacle of Northern Italian cuisine. Every ingredient chef Paolo touches is fresh from the farm to his kitchen to your table. Some of his favorite farms are Stonecipher farm, Dandelion springs farm, Valley Farm, Olivia’s Garden for basil and herbs, and North spore for foraged mushrooms

. Fresh fish is brought in each day by either Nova Seafood, Upstream, Harbor fish market or Browne Trading Co. He also sources things like rabbit from Sumner Valley Farm, lamb and pork from Two Cove Farm, while our dairy comes from a variety these farmers as well.

“Cooking is what I love and I want each ingredient to sing. Simplicity is my goal. If there are five ingredients, I want you to taste all five of them.” Portland reminds Paolo very much of Genova, Italy. “I love having the sea in front and the mountains and forest in the back, so many different food flavors to work with”, says chef Paolo.

05/06/2026

Thrilled to receive high praise from an esteemed critic! ♥️ 🇮🇹 ✌️

05/02/2026

💐 Sunday, May 10th 💐

Reservations for Mother’s Day are filling up! Service starts at noon for seatings all day from brunch to dinner. We look forward to seeing you and your special ones!

Pictured: the wonderful Elisabetta Fagiuoli of Montenidoli, revered as a “mother” of Italian winemaking and land stewardship in San Gimignano, Tuscany 💛

04/16/2026

Just a few of the comforting dishes getting us through Second Winter here in Portland 😮‍💨 🌧️

🦀 FRITTO MISTO
Genovese battered soft shell crab, red shrimp and spring carrots

🎣 PESCATRICE ALLA SPEZZINA
Legume soup from La Spezia served with local monkfish and Piennolo cherry tomatoes

🐑 COSTINE D’AGNELLO
Pan seared rack of lamb, roasted turnips, mustard greens, lamb sauce

04/07/2026

We can’t get enough of this dish from our crudo menu— a marrow trough with 60-day dry aged bluefin toro from with savory truffle and muggica for a bit of texture! Swipe ➡️ to scoop 🥄 💛 🐟

02/25/2026

TO ITALY WITH SOLO

This year we are excited to offer three different food and wine tours with Solo’s co-owners, head chef Paolo Laboa and Wine Guy Jesse Bania. Our first offering this June will be a tour of Paolo’s home region, Liguria, and then a stop to the wild island of Sardegna. In late fall, our classic trips will run—Liguria & Piemonte and then Liguria & Umbria. Details are all on our website (link in bio)!

While we could go on and on about the enriching experiences we’ve had on these trips, we’d rather let one of our guests share about their time in Italy with us last year. Scroll ➡️ to hear from Ellen, who admitted “it’s impossible to capture the magic of our trip in words.”

Inquiries about the trip can be sent through the website, or email Jesse at [email protected].

https://www.soloitalianorestaurant.com/trips

02/10/2026

MERCH DESIGN CONTEST ALERT!

We reopen ✨ TONIGHT ✨ and are feeling refreshed and grateful for our winter rest during which we enjoyed a staff skiing getaway and the chance to revive our space with new flooring and paint! We are happy to be back in action and are looking forward to so much this spring: the celebration of our love language (food) this Valentine’s Day weekend, March 1-12, preparing for our 10th birthday in May and offering THREE food + wine trips in Italia in 2026!

All of this goodness deserves some new merch and we are calling on our creative ragazzi to help us with a design! Molly, our resident artist & server created the vision in this post of Solo’s pasta as sea life (representative of Solo’s origins—the coasts of Maine and Genova).

WHO: Artists in 8th grade or younger :) 🧑‍🎨 👩‍🎨
WHAT: An illustration, color or B&W, that creatively reflects Italian food culture, or some of Solo Italiano’s specialties (we love a variety of pasta shapes, PESTO, octopi, mopeds, the harbor…) HOW: Drop off at Solo in person, or send as a PDF to [email protected]
BY WHEN: Deadline is March 31, 2026
PRIZE! Our entire team will vote (without knowing names of artists) on the designs. 1st Place winner will receive a shirt with their design when printed and a pizza party at Solo for themselves and up to 5 friends/family members! Entry with second most votes will receive a $50 gift card to Solo and their design on an alternate piece of merchandise.

We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

01/19/2026

Ciao Solo community! We are approaching our annual winter closure to allow our staff and our space the opportunity to rest and be refreshed.

We close Monday 1/26 and will reopen Tuesday 2/11. You’re most welcome at —our bakery in Bath, where we are soft-opening our evening service for the next 3 weekends! Ci vediamo presto!

01/03/2026

Buon Anno, Solo Italiano community! 🎉

This year we have decided to offer our entire full time staff health insurance for the first time. We believe that such coverage is a broad benefit to their well-being as well as to the business’ success! While margins are notoriously slim in this industry, size can help. But we are a small business at the end of the day, and size shouldn’t be a predetermining factor in our ability to offer such coverage in the first place.

We also believe that it doesn’t easily fit into a broad “pricing increase” approach. We began offering coverage to our salaried employees three years ago. Since then, those costs have increased 58% (this year it was 25% alone). By carving this out onto a surcharge on each check, it allows us to track and reconcile the charges against the unique cost they are covering. It even allows us to reimburse our employees on the employee responsibility portion of their premium in the event we over-collect!

As such, beginning today, we are increasing our service surcharge (to be renamed from “Coperto” to “Service and Wellness Charge) to 3.75%. 2% of this will be allocated to the health insurance program for our company, while the other 1.75% will remain for bread service. For full disclosure, the bread service portion is seeing a DECREASE from 2% last year after a full year’s assessment on the costs of bread service. Our bread service includes fresh-baked sourdough delivered from and focaccia made in-house at the restaurant, grissini for the bar and gluten-free grissini from Italy, & extra virgin olive oil for all of the above.

We appreciate your continued support and understanding and wish all of you a happy and healthy (and delicious) new year!

12/27/2025

Saturday 12/27–we have power and internet and will be open this evening for service! Thankful for the heroes who showed up and kept the fire under control, and to our gracious guests who evacuated the restaurant safely and with understanding and compassion.

This photo was submitted by someone dining with us Friday evening showing the view from their table in the mezzanine! 😮 🤯 🫣

Hopefully

12/26/2025

We had to evacuate the restaurant around 6pm this evening (12/26) due to the fire on the wharf. We will be closed this evening. Please stay safe. ❤️

Address

100 Commercial Street
Portland, ME
04101

Opening Hours

Tuesday	4:30pm - 9:30pm
Wednesday	4:30pm - 9:30pm
Thursday	4:30pm - 9:30pm
Friday	4:30pm - 9:30pm
Saturday	4:30pm - 9:30pm
Sunday	4:30pm - 9:30pm

Telephone

+12077800227

Website

http://www.soloitalianorestaurant.com/

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