Da Mimmo e Dax

This has become my very favorite restaurant in the Portland metro area. Why? Their food is delicious, unpretentious, well priced (you get a delicious simple salad with your entrée)…and-drum roll: they make gluten free, filled pastas & gnocchi & bread. Hurrah! A good restaurant who makes those who are gluten intolerant welcome, and treated as nicely as the general public. I’m done with fancy places charging high prices who give me a possible couple of choices. This place is it for me. It just gets better & better. We return tonight & I’ll post a couple of pix.

positives: clean, recently painted, excellent wait staff, organized. they offered to pay for our food. got a nice dessert instead.
negatives: pasta — soggy, red sauce — not to my liking, but may be to yours, foreign material in food — bones and metal, thus the offer to pay for my. meal
overall: gem in the rough needs work.

Everything was OK, service/​location/​atmosphere) except the food. We reserved a table for 6:30 but it was not ready on arrival which was fine as it is a small place. The bread that we got whilst waiting for our food was VERY VERY salty and unedible. Next, the side salad was a joke, a few lettuce leaves with a bit of dressing, perhaps that’s authentic. But the meatballs and pasta was, as another reviewer says, plain terrible. Just some small dry very «meaty» tasting meatballs in what can be described as nothing better than canned tomato sauce and rubbery pasta. The seafood special was better but still a disappointment. I had high expectations but sadly they were not met. I will go back, as it is local, but not for a while.

Bill, Barbara, Geof, and I had a fabulous meal! We all loved our entrees (portions are very generous — we went home happily with leftovers.). Lawson was attentive, and then some. We appreciated the table-​side visit from Mimmo and Dax. The salted caramel gelato was a perfect finale! Can’t wait for a return visit.

Wonderful and fresh food. The gnocchi is great. They make all their own pastas. Will come back!!!

De Mimmo now has a larger seating area which was definitely needed. I’d still recommend reservations because they can get busy. We’ve went several times over the last couple weeks and still rave about this place. I almost always order a special now because they have been beyond delicious. This past time I had the scallop tagliatelle with a cream sauce. It had so many scallops you could easily have some with each bite with such a balanced flavor. My whole family still eats gluten free and were happy to hear that almost every dish could be made with their exceptional homemade gluten free tagliatelle, gnocchi or ravioli. Also, get the gelato, it’s the perfect ending to such a phenomenal meal.

We had company in from out of town last night and wanted to stay local so we decided to try Da Mimmo. It is a small little restaurant in old town Sherwood. We walked in and it smelled strongly of parmigiano cheese and fish so we decided to eat outside Bistro style.
The service was good and very friendly. I was excited to try our authentic italian restaurant in sherwood. The whole meal had the potential to be amazing. As it turned out it absolutely was not. :(
We started with the caprese salad, which I love. It was very very SALTY! We then ordered dinner. My friend ordered lasagna. The pasta was over cooked and mushy. I ordered the tagliatelle with pork ragu. The pasta was under cooked. I am still not sure how one under cooks fresh pasta. It ended up chewy and gluey, like eating leather. The ragu was salty and acidic and seriously lacking pork and seasoning. The meal was over priced and not worth it. I was very disappointed.
If you are looking for a great authentic italian meal try Di Nicola in Portland.

Awesome wine, soup, salad, lasagna and lavender panna cotta! Great service and outdoor seating!

Loved the lasagne! Oh my ~ Delish!
Seating inside or outside. Top notch REAL Italian cooking.

Daily special was phenomenal: tagliatelle with shrimp in a basil pesto cream sauce. Had it with gluten free pasta that was light and delicate. I was very impressed. Gluten free lasagna also was tasty. Service was excellent. Server suggested a wine pairing with dinner that was spot on. Outdoor seating on a lovely evening. We made reservations. I will be eating here again, and making the drive from Portland.

I was looking for something new for our 15^th anniversary. I was trolling on
and wasn’t finding anything in Salem so I branched out and found this little jem in Old Town Sherwood. The place was clean, the service was great, but the food was top notch FANTASTIC! It’s a bit of a drive up from Salem, but we will be back to try something different on the menu.

Best Italian food outside of Italy.
Mimmo works from his family recipes and puts his Heart into his cooking.
«Con Amore e Passione!»

Wow! One of the most authentic, delicious, and original Italian restaurants I’ve ever been to. The wait staff was incredibly friendly and warm and the food was exceptional. The olive oil is handmade and some of the best I’ve ever tried. Do yourself a favor and try the ravioli when you’re there. This place will be in my book of favorites for years to come.

Da Mimmo was a Unilocal find. Wow, what a place! Family run, home made food. Gluten free options. (which were all amazing!)
I really can’t say enough nice stuff about this place. We enjoyed our meal from beginning to end. Homemade pasta was hanging off to the side, family pictures on the wall etc. Simple menu done right. Red sauce was really good! Pasta noodles were perfect.
Would definitely go out of my way to go back to this place!

Well,
Tried them again, knew better than to order the small meat balls.
Tried the the pasta dishes, reminded me of the meatballs. Looks like they are trying just not there, I am spoiled my guide is Carmine, s in Chicago. Hope the continue to evolve!

I live in Sherwood and after hearing mixed reviews from friends I decided to give Da Mimmo a try. Nice small, comfortable atmosphere. The wait staff was engaging, helpful and friendly. The food was disappointing however. I had pasta and meatballs. The pasta was leather like, the meatballs were dense, dry and cold in side. The sauce tasted like bad canned tomatoes.

Authentic Italian food. We had lunch, great service and atmosphere. Cost is a little on the high side for my taste, but I would go there again for a special occasion.

A pleasant surprise. I’m from the east coast, so, totally a food snob, and also Italian, so the expectations only go up from there.
We will definitely return to Mimmo’s.
I got the braciole with ravioli and my husband got the lasagna. Italian starts with good handmade pasta and Mimmo’s got that completely right. Cooked well and not gummy at all. Thumbs up.
The braciole was tender and flavorful. I hadn’t had it in years and this didn’t disappoint. The one criticism I had was that there was just a bit too much sauce on top, but that’s personal preference. I’d halve the amount used. The sauce itself was tangy and thick. Not watery at all.
The lasagna was a good sized portion and again, the pasta was very good. Lots of meat in the sauce. Personally, I’d add more cheese, but only because that’s the way I learned from my grandma and Mom. The flavor was good.
Next time, I’ll try the gnocchi and hope that the mussels special is back, because it was hard to make the decision between that and the braciole.
Wine selection is concise and varied. We got the Etna d’Rosso and it was perfect for the meat.
Ended with hand pulled espresso…(no lemon twist, which was odd, but the coffee itself was good) and hazlenut gelato.
When Mimmo came out to coo a little Italiano at our baby, I felt like I was at home.
Thumbs up.

We’ve been searching the tualatin valley for a decent italian restaurant. After trying da mimmo’s, our search continues. This was a real bummer because we had slightly high hopes that we had found our huckleberry.
I called at 5 to reserve a table for 7:30. When we arrived, our table had been given away. We took a table inside because i was hungry, and didn’t feel like waiting for a table outside.
The best item of the night was the italian rose we had with our meal. It was a marvelous bottle of wine. That was the only highlight.
We were given some bland and rubbery zucchini fritters as a bandaid for our meals taking so long. It took 17 minutes for two mista salads to arrive. 1 oz of lettuce with a drizzle of vinaigrette took 17 minutes.
Our entrees finally arrived. Small appetizer sized portions for italian. Her gnocchi was missing the mozzarella. We returned it and mine as well. 5 more minutes and we had them returned.
I had tagliatelle with pork ragu. The pasta was under al dente. For fresh pasta it wasn’t cooked extremely well. It ended up chewy and gluey. The ragu was salty and astringent and seriously lacking pork.
The gnocchi were far from pillowy. They were also rubbery and under cooked.
Dude dropped off the check at the end without so much as a have a good night or a thank you. We left and no one said bye.
The worst part? They had it on some pandora italian classics station. We heard «the aria» 3 times in 45 minutes.
I don’t know. This place needs help. Real help.

I don’t give high ratings except in rare circumstances, i.e. Anne Gunns in St. Louis, Chicago Chophouse in Chicago, etc. However, as someone that lived in Italy for a year I can say with absolute authority that this is not only one of the most authentic Italian meals I have eaten since I left Italy but one of the best tasting as well. The pasta is handmade each day and every ingredient is local, fresh and well handled. The salad with lightly tossed oils, a bread pizza crust that is skillet fried, and the dishes — regular and specials are executed with perfection. Be bold and take a chance on whatever they are serving… the experience is well worth every bite.
Mimmo and Sal are a perfect team that deliver excellent food and a selection of Italian wines well paired to the dishes they serve. Their restaurant is small with only a handful of tables, six I think, and a few torn chairs but for those that have visited Italy, this is a common street side restaurant that is the heart of dinning in Italy.
When visiting Da Mimmo’s don’t expect white tablecloths and black-​suited waiters. What you will find a very simple restaurant with a friendly staff and excellent food. The menu is small but there is heart in everything they make. Have questions… ask as I found their knowledge of the food, ingredients, and the history of each dish to be remarkable. To me, it was a step back into time and some of favorite places in Italy.
I look forward to my next trip to Oregon and dinning at what has clearly become one of my favorite restaurants. Their motto is, «con passione e amore» and it is obvious from the first bite that passion and love go into every dish.