The Best Bolognese Since France, at Chuckie Pies

Chuckie Pies has been sitting on my bookmarked list since the twenty-sixth of July, and for a slightly stupid reason: I walked past it at midday on a Sunday food crawl through Lake Oswego and it was shut. It doesn't open until four. All I got that day was a look through the glass at an empty dining room and a yellow poster on the door telling me the place had been voted best pizza, which is a frustrating thing to read from outside a locked building.

So I came back on a Thursday evening, at the right hour this time, and sat outside on First Street with a ten-inch sausage pie in front of me. Here is the thing I did not expect to be writing: the pie was mine, and the dish I came away thinking about was the rigatoni Bolognese on the other side of the table.

July, from the outside, at the wrong hour. Note the opening times on the glass: Tuesday – Sunday, 4pm – 9ish. I like a restaurant that admits to an "ish".

The best Bolognese I've had since the south of France

That is the claim, and I want to be careful with it, because it is a big one and I don't hand it out. The Bolognese at Chuckie Pies is sixteen dollars, it is rigatoni rather than anything long and twirled, and the menu describes it with no ceremony at all: rigatoni and house meat sauce topped with parmesan and parsley. That's the whole entry. There is a small bowl of grated parmesan set down next to it and nothing else going on.

And it is the best pasta Bolognese I've had since I was in the south of France. Not the best in Lake Oswego, not the best at a pizza place — since France. I'd order it again over the pizza, and I say that as someone who came here specifically for pizza.

Rigatoni, house meat sauce, parmesan, parsley. Sixteen dollars and no adjectives.

The ridges are doing real work here. A ragù this coarse would slide straight off spaghetti and end up as a pile at the bottom of the bowl; on rigatoni it catches in the grooves and gets pushed up inside the tubes, so every piece arrives loaded. Whoever decided the shape was paying attention.

Three pastas, total. The one on the bottom line is the reason to come.

What a ten-inch Neapolitan pie looks like here

The pizzas are ten inches, which is a personal pie and not a sharing one, and the menu is unusually straight with you about the method: 10" Neapolitan style pizzas featuring house dough. Simply topped then fired quickly in our wood oven, with a crisp, slightly charred crust and tender chewy interior. That is exactly what turns up. Mine was the Spicy Sausage Pie at eighteen dollars — tomato, mozzarella, Molinari fennel sausage in irregular crumbles rather than tidy discs, red pepper flake and parmesan — and the rim came out blonde and puffed with those dark leopard spots you only get from a floor that hot.

Ten inches, crumbled fennel sausage, and a rim that has clearly met a wood fire.

You can watch it happen, too. There are two wood-fired ovens behind the counter in cream tile, one of them lit, and the pass in front of them is stacked with boxes reading Neapolitan Uncomplicated — which is both a decent slogan and an accurate description of the food. The boxes also carry an old black-and-white photograph of a couple, captioned in handwriting as Esther and Chuckie Pie. Nobody explained who they were and I didn't ask, which I now regret.

Two ovens, one lit. The clock over the hood said 6:42.

The wine list is the actual surprise

I did not expect to spend time reading a wine list at a pizza place, and then I did. It is properly Italian — Barbera d'Alba and Barbera d'Asti, three tiers of Felsina Chianti including the Rancia in a 375ml, an Arneis, a Lambrusco listed honestly as slightly effervescent dry, red, and a Barbaresco at seventy dollars — with Oregon and Washington sitting alongside it rather than underneath it, Ayres and Lemelson pinot noir, a Woodward Canyon cab.

Two details on that list are worth more than the bottles. Corkage is ten dollars, which is generous. And there is a split size wine bottle for 2 section: 375ml of the Barbera d'Asti for twenty-one, the Chianti Classico for twenty-nine, an Oregon sparkling rosé in a 187ml for nine. Two people who want different things, or one glass more than a glass, and nobody has to commit to a whole bottle. More restaurants should do this.

Corkage $10, and half-bottles for two. On a list at a pizza restaurant.

Is Chuckie Pies worth going to in Lake Oswego?

Yes — and the room is part of the answer. The empty dining room I photographed through the glass in July was full by half past six on a Thursday: double-height ceiling with the ductwork left exposed and painted out white, dark walnut laid in a herringbone, brass pendants, a marble bar with tan leather stools and every one of them taken. It is a good-looking room that hasn't been made precious about itself, which is the same trick the food is doing.

The family has been at this since 2013 — Chuck and Lisa Shaw-Ryan, who say on their own site that they think of it as hosting a dinner party every night. That is the sort of line that usually means nothing. Here it survives contact with the evidence: a menu of three pastas and ten pies, no small plates arms race, and a wine list chosen by someone who enjoys wine.

Neapolitan Uncomplicated.

Four stars rather than five, and the reason is honest: the pie is good and the pasta is better, which is not what a place called Chuckie Pies is aiming for. If I could hand out a rating for a single dish, the Bolognese would have the fifth star on its own. But the meal is the unit, and the meal was very good rather than unimprovable. It is also, I only worked out afterwards, twenty street numbers from Artisserie at 350 — the two of them a few doors apart on the same block of First Street. A whole evening can be had here without moving the car.

Practical

Where: 370 First Street, Lake Oswego, Oregon.
Hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 4pm to 9pm — "9ish" on the door. Closed Mondays, and closed all day until four, which is the mistake I made the first time.
Booking: reservations through Resy, online ordering at chuckiepies.com, phone 503.342.6207. We were outside on the patio by five on a Thursday; the inside was full by half six.
Prices: pies $12–$20 (Marinara $12, Margherita $16, Spicy Sausage $18, Meatball and Bolognese $19, deep dish $20). Pasta $15–$16. Starters $9–$12, salads $12–$14, calzone $17, chicken parmesan $17. Gluten-free crust +$3.
Order this: the Bolognese. Add a pie to share if there are two of you — ten inches is one person's dinner, not a table's.
Drink: the split 375ml bottles if you're two, or the Barbera d'Asti by the glass at thirteen. Corkage $10 if you bring your own.

Worth it? Yes, and go for the pasta. I spent a month waiting to eat the pizza at a place voted best pizza in the neighbourhood, ate it, enjoyed it, and walked out talking about a sixteen-dollar bowl of rigatoni instead — the best Bolognese I've had since the south of France. Four stars for the meal, five for that one bowl.

First published on Abroad, August 20, 2026.