Chef Brian Grossman, Making a Test Batch of  Ravioli This Afternoon at the Cafe at Portland Pottery, Washington Avenue.  Lena’s Opens 11/9/2017

Lena’s Coming to an Already Multi-Cultural Restaurant Scene!

Lena’s Comfort Food to Open Here Next Thursday, November 9th.

A Preview of Delicious Ravioli to Come Beginning on Thursday, November 9th.   That  Gold Nugget There Is of Butternut Squash and Ricotta Cheese. Yum!

If it’s Italian comfort food you’ve been craving, crave no longer!  Because fantastic relief is on the way and will be here soon – compelling enough to excite this non-Italian as well!

Lena’s Italian Comfort food will make its presence known next week when it will open four days a week – at the Cafe at Portland Pottery.  There will be parmesans. fresh Foccacio, pasta and some seafood dishes mixed in there as well to satisfy the hungry Italian in all of us.  Deserts will include tiramish and cannaolis for sure. Italian wine and beer will be on the menu too.

On Sunday evenings a Family Style Dinner is planned during which big portions will be served on large platters.  The price will be per person.

Lena’s is the name of Chris Bruni’s grandmother who started the iconic Bruni’s Market in that spot in 1928.  After working at the Market all day, at night she would cook up a big pot of food to feed the neighborhood said Lisa Bonarrigo, who is married to Chris Bruni, owners of the Cafe and Lena’s.  “She never stopped working,” said Lisa this afternoon. The Market passed through the generations and Chris ran it until 1990.  Later on the Pottery business began and will continue unchanged in the same location.

Grossman,  ran his own seasonally focused  mobile kitchen, Farm to Coast  in Portland until just a few days ago when  he shut it down for the winter.  The three of them have been talking about putting together an Italian restaurant at the Cafe for months now.  The opportunity just presented itself and  is about to be fulfilled on Thursday, November 9th at 5:00 pm.

Lena’s will be the welcome Italian entry into an already multi-cultural restaurant scene on the east end of Portland.  There are already  Mexican and Japanese restaurants – to name just two of them.

Appetizers and salads will cost $8 – $12, entrees $18 – $24 and deserts are at $8.   Lena’s will be open Thursday – Sunday.  Sundays from 4:00 – 8:00 pm and Thursday, Friday and Saturdays from 5:00 – 9:00 pm.