Slab

Micucci’s is still better in my opinion. I cant eat either of them more than once a month.

Slab is a restaurant situated in the heart of Portland between bustling business and lively neighborhoods. It is one of the favourite hangout places for people from the Portland or away.
As you enter the place you are welcomed by a magnificent but also bordering pretentious luxuries of modernity.
The menu offers a wide variety of mouth-​watering starters. I had the Slab salad and shared the street chicken to start with, which offers a delightful Sicilian seasoned chicken that makes the mouth water. The main course consisted of a spicy meat wedge with pepperoni, peperoncini, red pepper sauce, oregano, cheeses, and their house blue cheese dip if desired.
It all was followed by a delicious frozzoli ice cream sandwich consisting of macaroons sandwiching a ricotta semi-​freddo with torrone brittle. Oh my gosh the deliciousness.
All the products treated fresh and the dishes had the warmth of home-​made food. The Chef seems to take great care in selecting the best quality ingredients. The great service accompanies the high quality of the cooking. You get a smile out of the waitresses as soon as she sees you and the rest of the staff are welcoming also.
Despite the high price on some of the food choices and the bordering pretentious design I had a pleasant dining experience with food delivering exquisite flavours. For this reason I recommend going to Slab for a night outs dinner.

I can’t speak to the food but I unfortunately had a not so good experience. I walked in, unsure if I wanted to eat there or get take out. I didn’t see a menu. I stood there for a minute or two and no one approached me. I suddenly got an employee who appeared out of nowhere asking if I needed something. Yeah. I need to be asked if I want a table or a menu to go. It just rubbed me the wrong way. I hope to come back not alone.

Ok, I know that this will be a very unpopular review as a whole here on Unilocal but I wanted to give some feedback so those that are in the same camp as me when it comes to Za, will make a good solid judgment about the pie they are going for.
I will first of all start off by saying that I am a flatbread kid of guy with a crispy thin crust and favors galore so you can already see where I am going with this if you are reading this and you have been here before.
I have been to Ottos, Flatbread company and Pats and they all have met my pizza requirements and I have even partaken in some Portland Pie for some Doughier crusts but here is where I am at with Slab.
We came here the other night and I was in the mood for some good pie. First of all the beer selection was great which was a plus and the size of all of the portions was fit for a king where most at the table couldn’t finish what they were eating due to the enormity of the food but here is the reason for the mid range review.
Service was ok and the pie was a huge billowy pile of dough with a little sauce and light on toppings … Now I know people will say that this is close to the actual pies from Italy but I was stationed in Naples and it was close but thicker and heartier … It is not a thick pie like a Chicago style deep dish but rather an airier doughy texture.
Now I know some people might love this but this is just coming from a person who is a fan of thin and flat (like I opened with) and I think I will have to pass next time and scoot right around to corner to some of the afore mentioned places.
But, if you like that style, the environment is great and the beers are cold and that style will be right up your alley. We saw some of the other tables were also getting much more energetic service than ours (kind of could tell wanted to leave and not be there) so that probably also added to the not so stellar experience.
Good thing is that you have many Za options in Portland to choose from. It all depends on what you like!

This place definitely lives up to the hype. The ‘half slab’ pizza is massive! Easily feeds 2 – 4 people, and very reasonably priced. The pizza is excellent tasting, and the rustic look on the inside is awesome as well. Very good experience, will definitely recommend

Should I write a review after just one visit to this joint? No, I should not, but I am gonna do it anyway! Been wanting to come here for over 2 years, finally just happened to be passing by, and thought I would see if they had slabs to go. They do! 10 minutes later, I had the goods, a schroomer half slab that I carried like a dime bag, anxious to sample the product. Well, it was a bit bigger than a dime bag, in fact it was MUCH bigger than a dime bag. I walked down Lancaster St. to where some dudes were passing around a glass pipe in an empty lot, and I figured this is the place to sample the product. SO GOOD!!! Shrooms, onions, just enough sauce. I prefer thin crust I really do, but Slab will make a Sicilian-​style lover out of you, trust me!!!

Highly recommended spot for brunch, lunch, or dinner.
We went for brunch today and will go back tomorrow. The pull-​apart bread was delicious and a creative way to serve bread with olive oil. The blueberry cornbread was good, but not highly recommended.
The star of the show was definitely the hand slab! Soft pillowy dough topped with perfectly seasoned and fresh tomato sauce and just the perfect amount of cheese .
Great service, fun ambiance, and delicious food– highly recommended.

I can’t wait for Wednesday nights with No Diggity to come back! Ballin food and great prices. Super laid back place.

One of the best happy hour deals in Portland — $ 3 cheese slab and $ 1 off well/​wine/​tap beers form 4−6pm, Monday-​Thursday (call to double check that).
Otherwise it’s a great place for groups (I’ve celebrated a few friends’ birthdays here), families, or for a date night.

I loved the décor and industrial feel. It’s casual and busy but the high ceilings and cement flooring has a way of making it non-​claustrophobic. You eat your food out of a cardboard tray and off a paper placement (no plates) with a paper menu and tongue-​depressor like forks and knives. I feel like small things like that add originality and when their «half slab» pizza came out, it was indeed original in presentation. The Sicilian slices are thick and tasty. The meatball sandwich was also very good, same with the breadsticks. This pizza is the kind you tell your friends about. If in Portland, you must try!

One of my FAVORITE eateries in Portland. We hit up slab whenever I’m craving a hearty, delicious meal that is affordable and served in a lively, casual environment. Having been here 3 times so far, the waitstaff is always reliably friendly and professional. The menu is incredibly varied considering this is a pizza place first and foremost.
People always say Micucci has the best Sicilian style pizza in town, but I’d have to disagree and say Slab does it best.
Some of my favorites:
— Monstri meatball sandwich — has 2 lbs of meat in it. Most amazing hot sandwich I have ever eaten in my life. The sandwich bread itself is really the slab pizza crust. The meatballs are made of beer braised beef, sausage, and peperoncini. A combo made in heaven. Juicy, tender, and melt-​in-​your mouth.
— Slab salad with the anchovy vinegarette — The dressing MAKES this salad. Anchovy sounds real pungent and strong, but really, it just makes the greens come to life in bold, light, zingy flavors.
— Street Chicken (appetizer) — the chicken thighs come in-​bone and the meat is fall-​off-​bone tender. It comes drenched in this thick yummy sauce.
— Spicy Meat Wedge pizza — Great pizza dough and great tomato sauce basically MAKE the pizza. Love the crusty, thick, fluffy-​ness of it all.
–Ceci (appetizer) — a hummus-​like chickpea appetizer. Comes with grilled flatbread. Although this dish was good, it wasn’t the best of the best here.
Oh, they have a decent bar too!

The hand slab is a pound of pizza dough but it’s an awesome cheat meal. It’s sweet and savory all at once.
The outside seating area is huge with picnic tables. There are bands & outdoor lights in the summer. Perfect for a quick bite! y

Slab is a great place for Italian fare. I’ve tried several varieties of their slab, as well as the Meatball Mostri. The flavor is wonderful, and something that you love to savor. My family also loves it, and it’s reasonably priced. They also have a pretty great beer selection, and I can always count on trying something new. Next up: cannoli, street chicken, and more.
They also serve brunch, so we’re due in for that, at some point. This place has not even remotely disappointed me. I’ll be back again, and again!

Love portland to death and spent this weekend trip trying new restaurants. Decided on a cheap dinner at Slab and the pizza was fantastic. The vibe is a little young, college age kids in groups or dates and some families. The pats game was one so was rowdy in a fun way since the place is really open.
The services is really basic, it is pizza after all.
We started with an arugula salad an d wish we got 2 of these! Then my husband and I both went for the original slab. He’s a meat eater and and I’m a veg and I love pizza loaded with veggies but it wasn’t really an option. Either way, I was incredibly happy with my choice. This is no thin crust, nor is it deep dish. It’s doughy and thick and has some weight to it. Good beer selection too. Only drawback was the restaurant scent on my jacket for days after!

Since I’m originally from NY I have been blessed with the best pizza in the country. The water plays a big part in how the dough will taste and the same goes for bagels. I know some people outside NY that have water shipped to them in order to maintain that NY texture and flavor!
The key element to perfect pizza is the sauce. It doesn’t matter what type of bread or cheese you use, if the sauce is lousy then the pizza is lousy.
Slab is a breath of fresh air and I am definitely a fan. The pizza is made on Focaccia bread and is light, airy, and full of life. The sauce is definitely sweetened but absolutely delicious. I’m not the only one that has gotten an extra cup on the side for dipping!
The prices are great (you won’t spend a lot of dough), value is tremendous (you’ll get a lot of dough), and service is excellent (you’ll leave a lot of dough).

The good, the bad, and the ugly of Portland’s gentrification are all on display here
First I’ll say that the pizza tastes good – it’s doughy, and said dough is soft, fresh and feels good in your belly. The sauce is sweet and the cheese is a nice Italian blend. On the basis of food alone, the place is just fine.
BUT, there’s a backstory: this pizza – the same exact product made by the same exact guy– was previously sold for half the price at Miccuci’s, the Italian market on India Street. Slab restaurant, however, charges a premium to serve it in a hipster-​curated environment, pared with somewhat steeply priced local brews.
In some ways this is a good thing – new-​age entrepreneurs are finding ways to combine and add value to traditional aspects of Portland. And it’s working pretty well for them: people are drawn in and willing to pay.
But in other ways, it’s a little bit unsettling to see hometown staples morph into pricey operations aiming to serve a hipster-​tourist and creative-​yuppy class.
This place is in many ways a microcosm of where Portland is going and how it is incorporating its old roots into its modern image.

Let me take you on a magic ride to Slab. While the exterior may seem simple, possibly uneventful, their pizza is out of this world!
Picture a giant square piece of sicilian pizza bigger than your head, with pockets of flavorful sauce and cheese sprinkled on top of a crusty, airy, yeasty, yummy dough: this is the hand slab, and all of this is yours for just $ 6. So. Much. Yum.
Their menu has other options, but honestly, I’ve never enjoyed any of the other options as much as the hand slab. Their meat and veggie slabs are half the size, and while they are still likely more than a serving size, I can’t get over the simple goodness of the hand slab.
I’ll say it one more time, get the hand slab.
Slab has a nice open dining area with lots of seating options and a great patio space. The bar offers a great beer selection, lots of local & New England choices. I have always had friendly fast service.
I often get a slab to-​go, call ahead and you’re out the door in seconds.

Wow. That’s what I said every time they brought out another plate of food.
So, I had been meaning to try out this spot for a while. I had been to Miccuci’s before and knew that the slab pizza was oh so good, if you like flaky doughy crust. I say this because I know not everyone does. But, being my first time here I wanted to try all the other interesting concoctions on the menu.
We started with a nut bread app. with a ricotta blue cheese spread. The bread was tasty, with almost a holiday but roll consistency, but the spread lacked a lot of flavor and there wasn’t nearly enough of it for the amount of bread we received. I also got a cocktail. It was a mescal/​lager mixture that was «eh», nothing I would every order again for $ 10. Next time I will go with one of their local micro brews.
Now, you may be wondering why I am giving this place 4 stars if I’ve had two things that were nothing special. Here is why.
Next, this amazing cone of sausage, cheese, spices and something that clearly came directly from heaven arrived in front of me. It’s was a gigantic pile of deliciousness for 6 $. It was as if dessert and pizza had mated to form the most beautiful baby ever. Thank you Slab. Thank you.
Then, another dish, the meatball sandwich showed up. OMG this thing was enormous. Granted it was $ 14, but it would easily feed two people. The bread was perfect, the cheese was just right and spread throughout and the meatballs were amazing.
This was my Treat Yo Self evening, so we ordered dessert to go. Out came a pastry, with a lemony ricotta filling, of enormous proportions. (Check out the picture! What?!?) Again, another $ 6, which in Portland is a deal for dessert, especially one of that size.
I will surely be back, with a large group of people so we can share all this food and try a few other items (like deep fried pizza, are these folks crazy?). Again, thank you Slab, and thank you Portland, for supporting this kind of restaurant.

Visited Portland for the weekend and as I’m always in the market for a good pizza place, Unilocal reviews steered me towards Slab. I was in Portland for two days and I came here both days, once for dinner and drinks and after watching the bar tender prep a cereal milk concoction for Sunday breakfast White Russians, we just had to come back the very next day.
They opened for brunch on Nov. 8 and while we only had the cereal White Russian’s, I can say that the breakfast pizza style food being eaten by others at the bar looked like bread, egg and meat heaven! If only we didn’t just eat breakfast at our hotel. Now we know for next time. The other reason we didn’t indulge, was that we’d ordered hand pies, street chicken and dessert the night before and still had leftovers to devour later in the day. The original hand pie with simple sauce and cheese is elevated to heavenly status by the dough. I’m not usually a fan of the greasy Sicilian pizza, but this had not a speck of grease, you might only need a napkin to wipe sauce off your face.
In addition to the great food, is a carefully curated list of beer offerings, mostly of local Maine breweries.
Slab is a must stop place the next time I’m in town and I’ll probably go back twice in the same weekend again because I want to try the monstri meatball sandwich and the spicy meat wedge, just can’t possibly choose between the two!

Let’s just get this out of the way first, Lanzalotta’s Sicilian slabs make all other slabs look like chewed up horse meat. This guy is the absolute king. If you think you’ve had this type of pizza before, you haven’t. You haven’t REALLY tried a slab until you’ve had Lanzalotta’s. When I heard he was opening up his own restaurant I nearly fell out of my chair — too bad I had to wait an entire year until I made it up to Maine to try it. Let me tell you, it was worth the wait!
The restaurant is full service, but it is very casual. There is a nice outdoor patio, as well as a roomy interior. I prefer eating indoors because the patio has community picnic tables, which is a trend I hope dies as quickly as it came. The inside is a mix of booths, tables and bar stools.
The only problem with the menu here is that everything looks too good. Luckily, things are affordable, so you can order several different dishes. We decided to split the ‘nzalata d’aranci (arugula, red onion, orange wheels, pickled fennel, moroccan olives, ricotta salata, limoncello vinaigrette), the meatball sandwich on luna bread, and the original hand slab. This was way more than enough for two hungry people. The meatball sandwich alone could feed two. Each one of these dishes was perfection. The salad was a nice refreshing complement to the incredible richness of the meatball sandwich. I’m not sure how he makes that luna bread so magical, but I think it has something to do with a few gallons of olive oil.
The beer menu here is excellent (as are the prices). The list highlights beers from Maine (as it should), but also includes favorites from around the globe. The emphasis is on beer, but they serve cocktails and wine as well.
I could not have been happier with my experience at Slab and can’t wait to go back… maybe tomorrow ;-).