Once a sprawling industrial area, Northwest Portland’s Slabtown has transformed over the last decade. Glitzy high-rise apartments tower over vestiges of the previous neighborhood, as well as newer retail boutiques and bottle shops. Restaurants like G-Love and Afuri thrum with evening activity, while coffee shops like Case Study and Good Coffee caffeinate the morning crowds. And for the last year, chef Gabriel Pascuzzi’s Bistecca has been wooing diners to its fire-lit dining room for ribeyes, grilled foie gras, and caviar bumps. Until this summer, the former Top Chef: Portland contestant had Tip Top Burger Shop and Feel Good across the plaza from Bistecca. But as he did when he transformed his grilled chicken restaurant Mama Bird into the Italian steakhouse, Pascuzzi will replace the two fast-casual lunch spots with Hey Luigi, an Italian American–inspired bar churning out Italian seafood, pastas, cocktails, and dessert. The bar will join the suite of new Italian restaurants that have opened in Portland over the last year.

While he’s spent nearly a decade on the casual side of restaurants, Pascuzzi never fully abandoned his fine-dining background at places like Noma and Colicchio & Sons. At Stacked Sandwich Shop, his first restaurant, he served oxtail French dips and smoked turkey Reubens, every ingredient made in-house. Feel Good fine-tuned rice and grain bowls with local produce and cheffy sauces. Still, the chef is thrilled to dig deeper into his roots. “I don't know how I got stuck in a casual world, but I doubt I’ll ever go back,” he says. That doesn’t mean Hey Luigi will be rolling out white tablecloths and prix fixe menus. Instead, it will have several pasta dishes, Italian drinking snacks, and seafood small plates and entrées in a stylish but relaxed bar setting. “This just tells my story, who I am as a chef and how I grew up,” he says.

Pasta has always been a part of Pascuzzi’s life, the son of a second-generation Italian American whose middle name is Luigi (Pascuzzi opted for a “hey” instead of “ciao” as a nod to his Italian American heritage). But Bistecca has only a wood fire grill, no stove to boil pasta. Hey Luigi gives Pascuzzi a chance to put it on the menu. Using imported Italian noodles, the bar will open with bucatini all’amatriciana, one of Pascuzzi’s all-time favorites; tube-shaped mezze maniche served with a mortar-and-pestle pesto; and spaghetti vongole, with braised, shelled clams. A mushroom risotto will round out the menu going into fall. Down the line, Pascuzzi plans on adding a rotating fresh pasta dish.

But Hey Luigi is a bar, which means bar snacks. A menu of seafood-heavy spuntini (smaller appetizers) and antipasti like anchovy toast, burrata, and calamari fritti will lead into heartier options, such as tuna carpaccio and mussels fra diavolo. Fans of Tip Top will be reassured to know that a burger, made with trim from Bistecca’s steaks, will be on the menu, too.

Also sticking around from Tip Top is the soft serve, with flavors like local honey and olive oil. During the creative planning, some leftover dough from the lobster rolls at Bistecca provided inspiration for doughnuts with espresso anglaise and pistachio. Amaro floats, affogato, and other treats will keep the sweets “light and fun” to match the rest of the menu.

At the time of writing, the Hey Luigi team was still playing with the drink menu, but diners can expect an Italian-leaning lineup that includes balsamic-spiked old-fashioneds, martinis washed with fig and pistachio olive oil, alcohol-free “No-gronis,” and a bourbon milk punch with coffee liqueur, Galliano, and preserved lemon foam.

The smaller, intimate space is an ideal setting for Pascuzzi’s vision of “dark, moody Italian cocktail bars,” with servers clad in white shirts, paisley ties, and aprons. The bar seats just over 30, plus some standing room at tables. Pascuzzi hopes to foster friendly chit-chat between strangers and wants to bolster that with an aperitivo hour after things get settled and flowing. To start, the bar will be open 3pm until 10:30 on Tuesdays through Thursdays, midnight on weekends.