We Got Sunday Sauce…On a Saturday?!
There's a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from doing a street fair right. By the time we peeled off from the Mississippi Street Fair—a day when North Mississippi Ave shuts down to cars and opens itself up to thousands of Portlandians who are elbow-to-elbow in the July heat—we'd made it about three-quarters of the way down before the crowd, and the admittedly mild sun had won.
We hadn't ordered a drop of alcohol from one of the many beloved bars all day (a feat for us) and had still, somehow, managed to meaningfully damage our bank accounts. We stepped out of there with a CBD cold brew from All Day Coffee Co. whose booth vendor exuded immaculate energy, a new charm necklace from Moonstruck Designs PDX, some new light reading from Rose City Comics, and my second risograph print from local artist, Jade Sturms. And I have no regrets; that's the tax you pay for a good street fair.
What we hadn't planned on was capping our day at Sunday Sauce…on a Saturday, nonetheless. We knew we’d been wanting to try out their grub long before it even officially opened. Tyler and I are both incredibly obsessed with anything Italian-American. If it has to do with New Jersey, we’re probably in. We adore the food, the culture, the reality TV, the mob movies (and shows), the history--all of it, really.
So when we found ourselves a mere 13-minute walk from the one and only Sunday Sauce that we’d been talking about, we knew that risking the minor heatstroke was worth it. Good thing we wore our fugly dad-running shoes for extra support.
The Concept, and the Argument Behind It
Sunday Sauce is the new North Portland project from Amanda and Judson Winquist, the team behind Normandie, with Executive Chef Isaiah Brown running the kitchen. It's an East Coast Italian-American restaurant, full stop—not the softened, everywhere-at-once version of "Italian" that shows up in some basic-level chain restaurants, or some local spot that gives giant portions that don’t back it up with the proper amount of flavor. No, Sunday Sauce is something more specific: true New Jersey and New York red-sauce cooking, built around the Winquist family's own Sunday-dinner tradition.
That word—sauce—is doing more work than you'd think. Depending on which Italian-American family you ask, it's sauce, it's gravy, it's sugo, and people have genuine feelings about which one is correct. The dish itself is simpler to agree on: beef and pork, braised low and slow in tomato sauce all day, the perfect use of butter and wine... Sunday Sauce the restaurant doesn't try to referee the naming debate. They serve you the food knowing that no matter what you call it, they’re some of the best at making it.
We walked right in, lightly sweating from the sweet summer heat. We had just pulled away from the street fair crowds and slid into the air-conditioned room. It was furnished with dark wood and what seemed like Nonna’s decor with some fresh modern twists, but the room was anything but too dark. They also don’t take reservations, so good thing we happened to get there right after they opened for dinner.
You just walk in, add your name to the list once the room fills, and wait it out: the kind of first-come-first-served policy that either delights or infuriates you, depending on how hungry you already are. But don’t worry, they’re pretty quick to bring your order out.
The Meal
As aforementioned, we arrived right around 4:30 p.m., angling for a sandwich, only to learn we'd landed squarely in dinner-service territory. We ordered the Sunday Sauce anyway, served family-style, and immediately understood why the couple next to us looked like they were sliding into a post-meal coma before we'd even placed our order. This is not a light dish, nor is it trying to be, but I will say it was the perfect amount of food for us to split without any appetizers or additional courses.
The rigatoni underneath it all was cooked exactly right–soft, never mushy, the kind of texture that holds a sauce instead of just wearing it. And the sauce itself: tomato up front, but with butter and wine working underneath, quiet enough to let the other flavors shine but strong enough that you don’t have to go looking for them. The braised pork and beef had that fall-apart tenderness that only came from hours of cooking, which is just what it did all day long in their tomato sauce. Fresh-grated cheese on top added the sweet, tangy finish the whole dish had been building toward. We cleaned the entire dish, and quicker than we’d like to admit!
Dessert was the real surprise: banana pudding tiramisu, ordered to go, and somehow still remarkable after a 25-minute drive home and a short stint in the fridge. I personally find that tiramisu, done right, is a dish where each bite is experienced in three acts—first the cool, wet crumble of soaked cake against cream, then the fuller hit of coffee and cinnamon, then the whipped and creamy outro to take it home. What Sunday Sauce does is slide a strong banana flavor into the equation, binding the textural opening to the flavorful close, a cohesive and heavenly experience. I didn’t expect it to work as well as it does…but it really does.
The Room
Plain and simple, the service matched the food. Our server (Alaska, per the receipt) was warm without performing, yet sharp without being cold or nervous, the rare combination of genuinely helpful and relaxed. Around us, the room did what a good red-sauce joint is supposed to do: couples splitting plates and a bottle of red, families packed into the big corner booth like it was built for exactly that (it was), tables of friends leaning into their carbs and their conversation. The playlist was spot-on: hit after hit, loud enough to give every table its own bubble of privacy, but quiet enough that you never had to raise your voice to be heard across it. That's a harder balance to strike than people give it credit for.
The Fine Print
In the interest of not writing something so glowing it reads as suspicious, I do have a couple of brief complaints: the two-tops feel way too small to me. The space feels genuinely tight. It’s narrow enough that anyone standing up from the neighboring booth ends up making unplanned, uncomfortably intimate contact with your personal space. Keeping my big leather purse on my hip nearly turned the whole row into one shared table. It's not a dealbreaker, but it's not nothing, either. I could imagine that might not be a vibe for some, depending on the occasion.
And the sandwiches–also known as the very reason we walked in seeking a very late lunch being well aware that we’re degenerates (What do you expect for people who woke up at noon?)—are obviously lunch hours only, and not to mention served only a few days a week. It's a defensible choice, tied to keeping ingredients fresh and menus focused. I respect it, but I would’ve been lying if I said I wasn’t looking for one of their Italian subs at a more accessible hour.
But hey, this is also the kind of limitation that guarantees an intentional return visit, which might be the actual point, so…touché. Again, it’s not all a downside, you know? Those two complaints were hard to dig for, and hopefully they were anything but deterring from our amazing experience. Yes, we went in expecting a sandwich, but we left plotting our next pasta dinner reservation-that-isn't-a-reservation. We can confirm that we’ll be returning pretty damn soon.
