Dimo's Italian Specialties

Dimo’s Expands Orbit with Grandeur, Gestalt, and Gooey Cheese | Eater Portland

"Set in the Burnside space that once served as a touchstone of East Burnside’s beer boom and later as the production facility for Fracture Brewing, the tall black grain silo still towers over the parking lot outside, though the brew tanks and hoses within are long gone and the tower now bears small white letters spelling the restaurant’s name. Inside, there’s a full bar, a bakery display case stocked with breads, pizza, and pastries, a small market nook with dry and refrigerated goods ranging from wines to salts, and a spacious dining room with no shortage of chairs, benches, and tables. The operation opened its doors on East Burnside Street officially on July 6 (summer 2025) and is the result of owner Doug Miriello — a Connecticut native who cut his teeth cooking in Los Angeles at Gjelina and Gjusta and who already runs a successful New Haven–style pizza shop next door and has two kids at home under six — deciding to remake the former brewspace into a full restaurant, bar, bakery, deli market, plus a thrice-weekly reservation-only supper club after Fracture ceased operations in 2024. “I want this to be my home,” he says. “I don’t want to do anything else. I want this to be it.” When the reservation-only supper club gets into full swing, the kitchen shifts from a high-end Italian bar menu to full dinner service: four pastas (including gnocchi dressed in lamb-tomato ragu and lasagna verde Bolognese composed of veal, pork, beef, and house-cured salumi) will rotate through the lineup, with whole branzino and pollo al mattone also offered and the operation expecting to complete two dinner services on those evenings. Cocktails are crafted to fit the format — the caprese martini, for example, angles at antipasto and is built on burrata whey, tomato water, and micro-basil clippings plucked from the kitchen’s prep station — and the cocktail program is helmed by Zena Smith, whose stints at Fracture and Cache Cache inform a work that blends mixologist meticulousness with a cook’s curiosity. Smith says she spent the past several months “playing with the flavors of Italy and the flavors of Doug’s food,” leaning into amaros and making the digestif’s “punchy bitterness, layered complexity, and unmistakably Italian profile” the main piece of almost all the cocktails on the menu; of the burrata whey addition she remarks, “I used a little bit of that for that briny saltiness, that lactic acid flavor… almost like zero waste.” Her sbagliato corretto is a Negroni that sees its gin subbed out for sparkling wine (influenced by “King Cocktail” Dale DeGroff), and her espresso martini — one of the few cocktails sans amaro — “evokes biscotti, conjuring the soft crunch of almond cookies dunked in morning coffee, reborn, instead, as a midnight indulgence.” Miriello frames the multi-use concept simply: “I want to be your… whatever you want us to be.” He downplays the difficulties of the nine-month construction and remodeling, conceding “It wasn’t easy to get where we are now, that’s for sure,” but emphasizes that every facet — whether focaccia or Sicilian square — draws from a focused source such as a former kitchen, a childhood memory, or a family recipe, and that if those remain in view the result will feel cohesive rather than scattershot. The local-facing, comfort-forward heart of the menu still makes room for what Miriello says Portland is always after: “The dirtbag stuff.” The purest expression of that impulse is the fonduta burger, a porcini-rubbed patty halved and dunked in a warm and gooey fontina fundata; pairing it with the cacio e pepe fries — peppered, punchy, and perfect for dragging through molten fontina — is presented as a savvy play. The team includes general manager Herb Apon (previously of Loyal Legion), who brings “serious beer fluency,” and assistant general manager Sarah Marshall, who Miriello says “is just going to crush the floor with service.” The location is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday." - Ron Scott

Smash Burgers With a San Francisco Pedigree Are Landing in Downtown Portland | Eater Portland

"Five years into pizza dominance, Dimo’s Apizza is taking over its next-door space to create a new deli/bar concept. Owner Doug Miriello told Oregon Live that the new space will serve as a deli market and bar, and on Fridays through Sundays operate as a “refined white tablecloth supper club.” The planned opening is set for June." - Paolo Bicchieri

Opened July 2025 beside Dimo’s Apizza, this all‑day spot layers bakery, deli, market, bar, and a reservation‑only dinner with pastas and branzino. Covered by Eater Portland, it channels Italy’s alimentari culture with Portland personality.