We had stopped by Slab once before during one of our PCRT Portland Beer Week Scavenger Hunts although technically it wasn’t one of the stops on our list.  But, that was awhile ago, and we were overdue to come back to actually spend some time. Finding ourselves with a few hours between dropping off and picking up the girls, we decided to head to Slab for lunch on a recent Saturday. I’m so glad we did!

Slab advertises itself as “Sicilian Street Food” which sounded interesting. We were looking for something casual and fun, and my husband always likes it when there’s a good craft beer offering. Slab delivered on all counts. It’s located in the old Portland Public Market Building. The restaurant has a nice, modern decor with high ceilings, and lots of light coming through the many windows. We settled into a cozy booth.

I had looked up their menu ahead of time as well as read a few reviews so I knew it wasn’t going to be traditional pizza. The menu had a nice selection of offerings. They had a lot of specials as well as seasonal flavors on their desserts. I choose the spicy meat wedge which is described on the menu as “pepperoni, peperoncini, red pepper sauce, oregano, cheeses, house blue cheese dip”, and my husband opted for one of their specials along with an Nøgne Ø Special Holiday Ale.  The wedge, while shaped like a pizza slice, is more like a light, fluffy piece of bread with a little bit of sauce, cheese, and toppings added to the top. The topping layers are thin. It has a much different vibe than the pizza I am use to eating. While normally I’m not a huge blue cheese fan, I actually loved the dipping sauce that came with my wedge and found the combination tasty.

While our meals were really good, the best part was that we ate light and had room for dessert. The entire sweets menu sounded fabulous, so it was hard to settle on just one, but we opted to split the frozzoli ice cream sandwich. The seasonal version had a vanilla, almond cookie exterior with a delicious frozen cannoli filling. It was truly spectacular. The wooden sporks were fun too although this was really an all hands on deck kind of dessert. 

We were there in the winter so didn’t get to experience their outside beer garden but it looks like a fun place to hang out on a warm summer night. Street parking was a little messy as it was the day after a storm, but the Elm Street garage was nearby and was only $1.75/hr so we parked there.

They open at 11:00 am and we got there a little after 11:30 am. It was not crowded when we arrived but things were getting much busier as we left. This was definitely a fun destination and one we will be back to again.