Food Guy: Like its flagship 1010, new Paulie’s Fine Italian is a 10-out-of-10

In one of the most anticipated new local restaurant openings in years, Smith started welcoming guests to Paulie’s last month inside the former — but remodeled — location of Bridge Road Bistro in South Hills.

While creating this new space, Smith talked a lot about family. The Italian grandfather he grew up cooking with, the big suppers he and his kin enjoyed on Sundays, the passed-down family recipes that would flavor the menu, and the cherished photos on the walls of Paulie’s.

In short, he said he wanted guests at his new restaurant to feel like family the minute they walked in the door — as if they were invited to those lively Sunday dinners.

He has accomplished that through warm and inviting décor, a welcoming and buzzy ambiance, friendly spot-on service and a soul-hugging selection of Italian comfort foods mixed with fun modern takes.

He calls it “old school, but with a new twist.� I call it fantastic.

A menu packed with winners

The menu is full of home runs, offering a tantalizing selection of classic and contemporary appetizers, salads, sides, pastas, steaks, seafood and more. So much so that we couldn’t recall ever having such a difficult time deciding what to try.

Easy fix, though. We just kept going back until we sampled almost everything on the menu. Here are just a few of the highlights.

On the snack menu, anchovy-stuffed fried olives with Marcona almonds and fried zucchini ribbons with basil buttermilk deliver the perfect salty and savory one-two punch to whet your appetite for what’s to come. Your next move should be the flavorful cannellini hummus served with basil pistou, chili oil and fried bread — a dish that looked so simple, yet we couldn’t get enough of.

Want to spice things up? Try the wood-fired oysters with Calabrian chili butter (a nice riff, but I prefer mine raw) or an oyster shooter with limoncello and chili oil.

Antipasto favorites include meatballs served over creamy polenta with rich tomato gravy; stracciatella featuring whipped ricotta with crunchy pine nuts; and chili-roasted cauliflower with golden raisins and honey, which blends heat and sweet to perfection.

Assorted salads toss fresh greens with goodies like marinated veggies and olives, or burrata and fire-roasted peppers, or peas with cured pork cheek and shaved fennel. Flash-baked pizzas from a massive pizza oven are topped with Hernshaw Farms mushrooms; basil, tomatoes and mozzarella; hot honey with chicken and basil pistou; sausage, pepperoni and mortadella and more.

Among the entrées, we adored a large plate of veal Milanese — pounded and breaded to perfection — served with arugula and lemon caper linguine, plus a creative flounder Puttanesca “boat� baked in spinach, olives and raisins that has become a surprise sleeper hit. And we coveted, at the table beside us, the gigantic glistening Del Monaco ribeye served with olive oil potatoes, tomato confit, green beans and Chianti butter.

And then, there are the pastas.

Signature Sunday Ribbons, a bowl of pappardelle pasta tossed with beef gravy (imagine a pasta sauce that’s been simmering on the stove all day) and fresh Parmesan that tasted like home on a plate. A decadent pasta carbonara flecked with peas, cured pork cheeks and silky egg yolks that was the best we’ve had outside of Italy. Local Angelo’s sausage and sweet pea rigatoni with broccolini and thyme crema; lobster bowties with savory sherry cream and tarragon breadcrumbs; and a 20-layer lasagna Bolognese that is so towering it has to be served on its side to keep from falling.

After sipping the last of our Italian martinis, spritzes, wines and cordials, we ended each visit by indulging in all the desserts: a rich and creamy chocolate budino (think of it as a thicker, richer, fudgier mousse), a light and refreshing panna cotta (a gelatin-spiked custard dressed with fruit and whipped cream), tiramisu-inspired cheesecake, cannoli chips with sweet whipped ricotta and one of the best bread puddings I’ve ever had.

The right way, not the easy way

Although Paulie’s opened a bit later than Smith and wife Carrie had originally hoped, that journey speaks volumes about the chef behind its name.

They completely remodeled the space, which took more time. When the new chairs they ordered didn’t strike the exact aesthetic they wanted, they ordered new ones. When one pizza oven didn’t work out, they went across the East Coast looking for another one. When there was a chance to cut corners to get construction done quicker or cheaper, they instead decided to stay the course.

And as much as they wanted to throw the doors open as soon as the restaurant was ready, they conducted weeks of staff training and held a month-long “by invitation only� soft opening to work the kinks out.

It’s the textbook way to open a new restaurant. Smith and his team did all this because they wanted to do things the right way, not the easy way. But what else would you expect from a James Beard award-winning chef?