Open daily 11am - 9pm. Sunday till 8pm
Call ahead to carry yours out or dine in with us
Try the all new: Foxy Shazam Pizza and Italian Beef!
$30 Spaghetti Challenge
2 lbs. Pasta, 1 lb. Meatballs, 1 lb. of marinara and garlic knots
Total of 4lbs, eat it all and it’s free! 45 minute time limit.
No leaving the table. No “returns” either please.
Finishers will win a T-shirt and photo on the wall of fame!
Padrino now offers DRAFT Beer! Cheap beer and craft beer side by side!
Now with HD TVs to watch the games, and as always, the best wings in the city!
Upcoming Events
Thursdays Trivia Night
Live music Saturdays (9:30) no cover charge, pizza by the slice till 1am
4- Ralston Lewis
11- Fathead Davis
18- Tin Whiskers
25- Billy Rock
Reviews
Are You Up For The Challenge
Anyone who has ever seen Gordon Ramsey’s shows knows how much Gordon emphasizes 3 things... fresh, fresher and freshest. Ingredients are key, no other factor can compare or replace it.
Padrino has fresh. Lots of it. Gordon would likely nod in approval to Padrino’s simple menu, fresh ingredients and overall quality. That’s saying a lot.
The menu is simple yet well equipped. . It features well rounded selections and several vegetarian entree and sandwich selections aside from pizza.
Six starters, one soup, five salads, nine sandwiches, ten gourmet pizzas and a 4 pound Spaghetti Challenge all fit on a folded 8.5 x 11 glossy paper menu. At under $17 for entrees & pizza, under $9 for the sandwiches & salads and $6 or less for appetizers it also fits in your budget, for lunch or an evening out.
The attention here is not on a eight page listing of every Italian dish every copied in America as you commonly see. The focus is on freshness and it shows in the flavor.
The food has an obvious chef flair because it’s chef driven. Chef Paul Barraco, (chef of 20 brix next door) also has his spoons in the pots at Padrino. It’s Padrino’s good fortune to serve under the same flag as 20 brix. The little Italian bistro borrows much of their quality stock from the 20 brix coffers. Including the wine. When the flavor of the red is as important to you as the marinara, Padrino will please.
The spirits continue at the bar. Full service and fully stocked it’s quite capable of handling several large football parties. With $6 wings and cold top quality brew during the games expect to see wall to wall orange and black. The appetizers alone will probably bring most folks back.
Here’s two examples of Padrino’s fine product. A white pizza ($9). A lusciously creamy whole milk ricotta cheese blend with fresh mushrooms and pepperoncini. Simple yet so satisfying. The crust is buttery, it snaps on the edges but retains a soft chew. First rate dough cooked fast and hot. Perfect.
The second is the roasted vegetable open face melt ($7). Think of it as French bread pizza. Thick slices of eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash atop grilled garlic bread with a slash of marinara. Kick in the extra $1.50 for the Parmesan fries. The kettle chips are good but the fries really make it a meal. A delicious meal. Especially for a vegetarian option. Padrino has enough other veggie choices to be considered “veggie friendly” in our book.
Will they start stealing Ferrari’s patrons? Maybe. Will they jar their fresh made marinara and get rich? Maybe. Will they serve you a meal that exceeds your expectations? Certainly.
Padrino’s Spaghetti Challenge sounds interesting. It’s 2 lbs. of pasta, 1 lb. of meatballs 1 lb. of marinara and garlic knots.
There is a 45 minute time limit and no leaving the table. They don’t appreciate “returns” either. Finishers will walk out with a T-shirt, a photo on the wall of fame and the $30 bill taken care of.
What happens after that is your (and your plumbers) problem. If you plan on taking Padrino up on their challenge send us an invite, we’d like to bear witness and snap a photo, maybe even a video of your ordeal to post on our site.
You don’t have to be up for a gut busting exercise to get your money’s worth at Padrino. They’re quality conscience far more than most yet maintain prices for the budget conscience. That’s a true bistro.
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Sweet Italian, Sweet Tunes
By now most of you foodies know about Padrino. The light & airy pizzas, the luscious lasagne, marvelous manicotti, herb infused meatballs, the scratch made sauce and savory Italian sausage. Not to mention the belly bustin’ “Spaghetti Challenge”. The menu is chock full of soul satisfying Italian. It’s all chef made goodness, quality runs rampant here. After all, Padrino is the sister ship to the fabulous fine dining destination, 20 Brix. But, fine food is not the focus of this article. As much as I’d love to entertain you by digging up words to capture the fine flavors in Padrino’s dishes, for this print I’m thinking of words such as rockin’ & groovin’, movin’ & shakin’, drinkin’ & dancin’ and The Dead.
You’ll usually hear the Grateful Dead coming on quietly out of the 20 Brix speakers. But did you realize you hear the same groove coming on loud & proud out of Jerry’s Little Band’s speakers a couple doors down at Padrino? That’s the truth.
Padrino hosts many fine musicians for the Saturday midnight hour. I strolled in on a Saturday and was pleased to find Sonny Moorman sitting with his six string wooing the crowd with his power blues prowess (He’s second to none by the way). The band list is not nearly as massive as the insane Spaghetti Challenge but just like the food, quality is what it’s all about. Padrino doesn’t need to stock their Saturday schedule with great music, they just choose to, and they only feature the area’s best in show. In October they featured; The Rubber Knife Gang (Bluegrass), Hoopleheads (Guitar & Vocal Duo), Sonny Moorman (Blues), Spare Change (Rock Duo) and Harvest (Jam Band). The jam band/bluegrass/slam grass thing is often the main vein (and that’s just fine by me). November’s schedule already features; the Kevin Fox Duo (Rock Duo) on the 6th and Fairbanks 142 (Jam/Rock) on the 13th, more are coming as well.
If your looking for something fun but just to too damn old for the Saturday night rock scene stop by on the last Tuesday of every month and dine in style with “Cincinnati’s Sinatra”-Matt Snow. You can catch either the 5:30 or 7:30 dinner show. Reservations are not required (but highly suggested). It’s a dinner show Sopranos style. Entertaining for all ages.
Remember, 6 days a week Padrino is purely a romantic Italiano risorante. On Saturday nights Padrino is a rockin’ pub. Granted, a damn nice pub but the term still applies. Check out all the Padrino info on our site or theirs at padrinoitalian.com it features the food, the fun, the story and the weekly comfort food specials. Plus, the details on that insane “Spaghetti Challenge” If you eat it all it’s free, if you don’t your shamed. Famed or shamed, it’s still insane. Adam Richman needs to check this out. Preferably on a Saturday night too.
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Livening Up Lonely Town
Old Milford is a charming example of what the Eastside once was. Quaint mom & pop shops, historic store fronts. It’s practically Mayberry. The same ideology worked for Mariemont. It’s yet to do the same for Milford though. A few short months ago Dom DeMeo (owner of defunct DeMeo’s) told us the area is so slow that inevitably the businesses will slowly dwindle down to their demise. “On a nice sunny Summer afternoon you can sit in the dining room and watch the tumbleweeds blow by” Dom joked. Dom predicted DeMeo’s demise and that was no joke. The food excelled at edibility but no one was there to eat it.
Enter Padrino’s. Padrino’s snapped up DeMeo’s spot and with a few changes turned it into a nice little eatery again. The theme is still Italian, but that’s all they have in common. Padrino’s claims “The site of the old Demeo’s... is a new affordable family pizzeria, from the family that brought you 20 Brix... Padrino will be the family restaurant in Milford. Padrino... is Italian for godfather; we’re not mafia, but the food is good enough for your whole crew... Serving the cities best pizzas... gourmet toppings like goat cheese, pine nuts, and prosciutto.”
The individual veggie pizza we ordered was decent enough for $8 (entrees are $7-$14). The decor is fresh, dining al fresco is a plus but is it enough to keep the boat afloat in these shallow seas? We’ll see.
