Tiny, precious, and utterly disarming — Portland's most intimate Italian room, where a proposal over handmade pasta needs no further decoration.
Piccolo occupied a narrow slice of Middle Street next to the Portland Police Department — a location that only a city as unpredictable as Portland could produce — and within its 20 seats it contained some of the most accomplished Italian cooking in New England. Chef-owners Damian Sansonetti and Ilma Lopez ran a restaurant that felt deeply personal from the first moment: the kind of place where the cooking reflected the cooks, where the menu changed not because menus must change but because the market changed and the curiosity of the kitchen demanded it.
The food drew on the rustic Mediterranean home-cooking of Abruzzi and Calabria — regions whose traditions favour long cooking, simple ingredients, and the confidence to let a good thing alone. Handmade pasta, made with the kind of care that cannot be rushed, was the signature of the menu. Grilled seafood from Maine's waters was treated with the same Mediterranean sensibility. The wine programme, focused on southern and central Italy, was chosen for the food rather than for the score sheet.
The dining room was exactly as the name suggested: piccolo, small. Twenty seats. The intimacy was not selected — it was structural. Conversations at one table naturally reached the next. Damian Sansonetti moved between the kitchen and the floor with the easy authority of someone cooking for friends. Ilma Lopez ran a front of house that felt like being invited into a private home.
Piccolo closed permanently in July 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its absence left a specific gap in Portland's dining landscape that has not been filled in precisely the same way. The restaurant is remembered with genuine affection by everyone who had a meal there, and particularly by those who were proposed to over its handmade pasta.
Twenty seats. Two chefs who cooked like they meant it. A room so small that the moment felt already private before anyone lowered a knee. Piccolo was the proposal restaurant for the person who understood that the most romantic setting is not the most expensive one, but the most human. The handmade pasta arrived on plain white plates. The wine was chosen without pretension. And the question — when it came — felt appropriate to the room: honest, intimate, offered without spectacle.
Address
111 Middle St, Portland, ME 04101
Neighbourhood
Downtown / Arts District
Price Per Person
$65–$100 with wine
Cuisine
Italian
Dress Code
Smart casual
Reservations
Permanently closed as of July 2020
Hours
Permanently closed
Phone
N/A
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