“Nostrana celebrates the Pacific Northwest with inventive regional Italian cuisine, built on simplicity and fresh, local ingredients. The restaurant’s hearth makes cooking with fire a central theme. Chef Cathy Whims has many close, personal relationships with farmers in the region, and these ingredients shine in her deft use of them.”

Potato gnocchi with Marcella’s tomato butter sauce; Nostrana’s woodfired pizzas.

Nostrana is the kind of place that doesn’t boast about sustainability for marketing purposes. Chef Cathy Whims has been living by these principles for many years. She sources ninety percent of their produce from local farmers, and eighty percent of their proteins from local suppliers.

They have long been active with slow food, and we think it’s especially cool that once a year, they invite all of their farmers to join them for dinner at Nostrana to break bread together.

“There’s a reason this warm, gracious Southeast Portland restaurant has a wall filled with accolades, including a half-dozen James Beard Award nominations and The Oregonian’s 2006 Restaurant of the Year. Here, chef Cathy Whims and her team serve fine-tuned salads, beautifully blistered Neapolitan pizzas, juicy woodcharred steaks and faithful Italian pastas inspired by Whims’ mentor, the late Italian cookbook author Marcella Hazan.” –Michael Russell, The Oregonian