RESTAURANT NEWS | OREGON
Sprezzatura Brings Venice's Bar Snacks to Portland
Small plates, house-made pasta, and spritzes take over a historic hotel dining room, with a Portland chef running the kitchen.
BAR SPREZZATURA | MAP | INSTAGRAM
By Mei Chen
7:25 a.m. PT, Oct. 28, 2026
AUTHOR BIO: Mei Chen has worked for nearly a dozen start-ups in as many years, taking her to several West Coast cities. While she’s sure her current day job is permanent, she also has her eye on Carmel.
The first thing to understand about Bar Sprezzatura is that it's built around the drink. The new Portland restaurant pours spritzes and negronis first and builds the food around them: small plates, house-made pasta, and wood-fired pizzette, served in a dining room dressed in mustard-yellow banquettes, plaid chairs, deep red drapes, and globe chandeliers.
Bar Sprezzatura is open now in Portland's historic Heathman Hotel, the Mina Group's second location of the concept. Chef Justin Ramirez runs the kitchen. He's a Portland cook, with Coquine, Arden, and The Hoxton/La Neta on his résumé, who also worked in a Michael Mina kitchen back in 2013, so the job is something of a homecoming.
Ravioli Brodo
The format comes from Venice's bàcari, the neighborhood wine bars where a drink arrives with a small plate. Sprezzatura is the Italian word for studied effortlessness, the art of making a hard thing look easy, and the menu follows that idea. The cicchetti, Venice's small savory bar snacks, run to crudo, deviled eggs, tramezzini, and fried chickpeas, alongside house-made pastas, local meat and seafood, and pizzette from a wood-fired oven. Among the plates are ravioli in brodo, finished with broth poured at the table, and a chicken Milanese served under greens and radish.
Aperitivo hour is the natural way in: a drink, a few small plates, and no pressure to turn it into a full dinner. The drinks program is the point, not an afterthought. Spritzes, negronis, and martinis lead, backed by a serious shelf of amaro and Italian liqueurs, plus Italian wines. There's also a full non-alcoholic menu, with spritzes, negronis, and martinis made without alcohol. Partner and mixologist Carlo Splendorini leads the concept's drinks, and Niko Smith is Portland's lead bartender.
Cicchetti Cocktail
The room matches that easygoing pitch. Beyond the main dining room, cozy nooks for group dining tuck around the edges, and a private dining table sits under a large woven-look artwork. It's plush without feeling formal, more Venetian salon than Portland minimalism.
Chicken Milanese
The opening also puts the hotel's dining under one roof: the Mina Group now oversees food and beverage across the Heathman, including breakfast at The Conservatory. For a hotel dining room, Bar Sprezzatura reads less like a lobby restaurant and more like a neighborhood bar that happens to serve dinner, which, for a Venetian bàcaro, is the point.
Miami chef Brad Kilgore now runs the kitchen at Fort Lauderdale’s invitation-only club.
By ERIC BARTON