February 1st, 2019
Portland, Oregon
It’s been a while since we posted, but earlier this month we took a birthday trip out to the Pacific Northeast to visit some friends, and to hit a few remaining pizza places from the lists. We started out at Nostrana, which made the list in 2016, although hasn’t done so again since.
We almost didn’t make it here. Our flight from Newark was delayed, and Nostrana is only open until 2 pm for lunch. We had dinner plans with friends, so we were on a very tight schedule. We ran off the plane, grabbed our luggage and the rental car, and made it in the door of the restaurant at 1:55 pm.
While they recommend making reservations for dinner, we had no problem getting seats for lunch with James. We ordered a margherita pie, and one with mushrooms and arugula topped with freshly sliced pecorino. James ate a few mushrooms and some bread.
This was only the second restaurant that we’ve been to that give you scissors to cut your pie. The first being Franny’s, in Brooklyn, which is sadly no longer in operation. We really enjoyed these pizzas. The crust was good and chewy and the margherita was the right ratio of sauce:cheese.
So you may be wondering, is cutting your pizza with scissors really more authentic? Well, we read that in Italy, street pizzerias that made long, Roman-style pies would cut the slices with scissors (or “food shears”) for their customers. They could then customize how big to cut the slices and would charge by how much the slice weighed. Should scissors be used for cutting Neapolitan-style pies, though? We aren’t sure. In some ways, scissors are much better for cutting than a traditional pizza cutter (and definitely better than a knife and fork!). However, the pizza needs to be thin enough and you don’t want too much cheese or topping to cut through. It worked for these.
We’d love to come back here sometime for dinner, although as I said before, reservations are recommended. They are also only open Monday through Friday for lunch.
To visit:
Nostrana
1401 SE Morrison St Ste. 101
Portland, OR 97214
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