Restaurants in Portage

Though it's been a family secret since 1936, Mangia Mangia owners Emilio and Maria Dacoba award ample clues to guests who come dine at their tables topped with red-and-white checkered cloths. The secret's in the sauce—specifically, Nonna Rosa's spaghetti sauce, a family favorite that flavors many of Mangia Mangia's dishes. Along with creating Italian feasts the traditional way using family recipes, the duo caters to dietary restrictions with gluten-free pasta options and gluten-free crusts on some of their pizzas. For parties too large for the normal dining room or too devoted to wearing hoop skirts, Mangia Mangia also offers a 70-seat banquet room, an ideal locale for family reunions and rehearsal dinners.

At Fuel Vegetarian a vegan can bite into an American-style burger with a Peruvian-seasoned patty and gooey layer of cheese. The completely vegetarian, raw, and vegan-friendly restaurant crafts meat-free versions of classic tastes from places such as Italy, Cuba, Ethiopia, and Louisiana. Executive chef Denise Miller creates a list of regionally themed plates such as the southern stack, which includes cream of wheat-crusted substitution chicken strewn across a bed of black-eyed peas and collard greens. Along with using local and sustainable ingredients, Fuel Vegetarian gives back to the community by donating $0.60 to local nonprofits every time a customer orders a dessert or successfully licks their elbow.

Although Goomba’s Pizza USA changed its name from Gumby’s Pizza, nothing has changed about the piping hot pies and Pokeme Stix that emerge from ovens baked golden brown. Cravings meet their match with basic cheese pizzas or specialty pies such as the Maui Wowi, a hangout for pineapple; Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce and surfer jargon; or the Stoner Pie, home to mozzarella sticks, pepperoni, bacon, and french fries. Meanwhile, Goomba’s Pokeme Stix bakers top hand-tossed dough with garlic butter, Italian spices, mozzarella, and parmesan. Munchers can carry out their boneless or buffalo wings and a variety of other appetizers to eat around the kitchen table or inside a vacationing neighbor's hot tub.

Jet’s Pizza—ranked among the best-selling pizza franchises in 2010 by PMQ Pizza Magazine—has exploded with more than 200 locations since brothers Eugene and John Jetts opened their first shop in 1978. The menu teems with customizable pies, each built on traditional hand-tossed crust, New York style thin crust, or deep-dish crust, available in eight flavors such as poppy seed, Cajun, and garlic. Chefs fling dough disks into the air while Olympic shooters blast the flying, red-sauced rectangles with one of 18 available toppings. Before digging into a main dish, share an order of bubbly, triple-cheese Turbo Stix, which come topped with mozzarella, cheddar, romano, garlic, and butter and are served with pizza sauce perfect for dipping or drawing designs on crisp dress shirts.

When Todd, Pam, and Nina Meyer opened Nina’s Cafe in 1998, they created a space that captured exactly what they wanted in a restaurant—a smoke-free room filled with the scents of all-day breakfast feasts and tasty soups and chili made from their own family recipes. Bottomless cups of fresh coffee accompany plates of eggs florentine or pancakes and waffles topped with rivers of warm syrup. For lunch, expect feasts of burgers, chicken salad wraps, and quesadillas. Since Nina’s 45-seat diner is cozy, guests are advised to call ahead to avoid the long lines of eager patrons and sprawling tent cities that spring up in front of the restaurant each morning.

Housed in one of downtown Baltimore's oldest brick buildings, the Waterfront Hotel Restaurant offers a weekend brunch menu splashed with traditional southern flavors and deep-sea delights. Fatigued longshoremen can break their fast with a crab hash skillet ($17.95), while languid landlubbers can hunker down with a traditional 8-ounce steak-and-eggs platter ($13.95). Lunch or dinner at the Waterfront may begin with undersea treats such as ginger calamari ($9.95) or buttery mussels ($9.95). Slay a grumbling gut-Grendel with a fried oyster po' boy ($11.95), or contemplate the mystic duality of lunch over a sweet-and-savory turkey-brie quesadilla ($9.95). Evening entrees, served from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m, include the scampi (blackened shrimp, scallops, and crab over linguini, $16.95) and the honey chipotle pork chop with mac 'n' cheese ($14.95).