Montelupo, the popular Kerns neighborhood Italian restaurant, will expand with a new market for Italian pantry goods, focaccia sandwiches and Roman-style pizza, opening as soon as August.
According to Montelupo’s Adam Berger, the idea for the market came together quickly this summer, after Portland restaurateur Micah Camden reached out about taking over his former Baes Chicken location in Sellwood-Moreland.
As with the original Montelupo, the new market — I’ve been calling it “Monte-2-po” in my head — will feature imported goods, beer, wine, to-go cocktails, olive oils, tinned fish and take-and-bake pastas. It will open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily in the Southeast Bybee Boulevard storefront sandwiched between PDX Sliders and Oaks Bottom Public House.
“We’ve been looking for more locations for the market for a while, so when Micah called me, we went to take a look, and then who doesn’t love Sellwood?” Berger said. “It’s just a great neighborhood.”
Berger, whose 24th Meatballs & Pizza closed in June (a bar is planned for the space), opened the original Montelupo just two blocks from his former Italian restaurant, Tabla, in July 2020, in the space previously home to bars including Red Flag and Poison’s Rainbow. The restaurant is named for the Italian town where Berger learned to make pasta 23 years ago. It specializes in pastas, with most refreshingly priced under $20, served to a small dining room and expansive seating on a street patio.
According to Berger, the new market will double as a focacceria, with bread baked fresh throughout the day, sold by the slab, turned into a sandwich or topped ala Roman-style pizza. The menu will be kept purposefully small — “we don’t want a full restaurant,” Berger said — with a couple of appetizers and salads alongside the pizza.
“It’s gonna be really cool,” Berger said. “And I think it will smell really good, too.”
Montelupo’s Sellwood-Moreland market hopes to open as soon as August at 1613 S.E. Bybee Blvd., montelupo.co
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Former Tabla owner returns with new Northeast Portland pasta restaurant, Montelupo
— Michael Russell; mrussell@oregonian.com
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