LOOKING UP: Sophia's dinners are a great choice.

If you were traveling to Italy and someone told you about a place like Sophia’s you would go out of your way to go. It’s an eccentric, family place, they would tell you — run by a woodworker turned artisan baker. He personally crafts simple Italian meals in the kitchen, occasionally ambling out front to chat with customers, while his teenage daughter waits on the diners, carrying a chalkboard listing the day’s offerings from table to table. You eat on paper, since they can’t get enough water to wash customers’ dishes, and you bring your own bottle of wine from the shop around the corner. The glass case is filled with his legendary breads and pastries, the baker’s own paintings hang on the walls, and art books are piled chaotically about the room. If you heard about it, and you cared about food, you would rent a car, brave the Italian roads and Italian drivers, and you would go.

Since Sophia’s is actually right in the Old Port, it would be a crime if Portlanders don’t make it a success. It is charming and inexpensive, and the food is wonderful. While the cuisine is simple and straightforward, it’s not quite like anything else you can get in Maine.

Many people are probably already familiar with Sophia’s as a bakery, then a popular spot to grab a simple lunch plate (often bread, cheese, meat, mustard, and olives), and even a Sunday brunch spot — all with hours that even the owner, Stephen Lanzalotta, admits were “maddeningly erratic.” But the new dinner offers Sophia’s at its most thoroughly satisfying. And the hours, essentially all day Friday to Sunday, with dinner from 5:30 to 9 pm, are at their simplest and (one hopes) their most predictable.

The main attraction of Sophia’s has always been Lanzalotta’s breads. He uses traditional methods to create chewy, moist, earthy loaves and baguettes. At dinner these breads play a supporting role — tucked, for example under a pile of spicy egg salad on one of the small open-faced sandwich “piade” that serve as appetizers. The egg was creamy, a bit spicy, and a pleasingly unusual yellow that looked great on the thin slice of very dark, dense, complexly flavored wholemeal bread.

A lighter bread, with a crisp, crackling crust, is featured in the wonderful pizza. One with tomato, eggplant, and olives arrived unexpectedly large, drooping over the edges of its platter. The browns, deep reds, purples, and greens of the pie, all muted, blended together pleasingly a little like one of Lanzalotta’s abstract paintings hanging nearby. A island of white, where the cheese was most dense, perched haphazardly on each of the large square slices.

Just as good were the del giorno, which can serve as appetizers or sides to the meal. A squash bisque, creamy and thick, was delicious, especially when you toppled in the sour cherries that perched on the edge of the bowl (for soups you get ceramic). A cabbage slaw with apples was crisp, fresh, and sweet with a little zing from the basil and parsley.

The tender, lightly oily broccolini served as a lovely side to the simple pastas that, along with the pizza and a giant bowl of chicken soup, serve as the main courses. Two very simple pastas were on offer and we tried them both. The tomatoes of the marinara, spotted with thin slices of garlic, avoided the jarring acidity we have come to accept in tomato sauces. The parmigiano featured rigatoni coated with sharp salty cheese that was delicious even as it cooled into something a little sticky.

Lanzalotta, a baker, chef, painter, woodworker, author, and father, seems to have a lot of demands on his time — and in juggling his passions he occasionally needs to let something go. Recently heartbroken customers had to cajole him into bringing back his lunch service. Portland should not give him any excuse to stop serving dinner. When it is slow you can chat up the chef on his art or his very well developed philosophy on food. When it’s busy be patient (he is alone back there in the kitchen) and flip through one of the art books. Affordable, humble Sophia’s is a priceless addition to the Portland food scene.

Sophia's | Thurs 10 am-5 pm; Fri-Sun 10 am-9 pm; dinner starts at 5:30 pm | 81 Market St, Portland | 207.879.1869

Email the author
Brian Duff: bduff@une.edu