Paulie’s Fine Italian opening its doors
- Steven Keith
- 22 hours ago
- 6 min read
James Beard-winning chef launches new restaurant in South Hills
After several months of the most anticipated new local restaurant opening in recent memory, Paulie’s Fine Italian will gradually start welcoming guests at 915 Bridge Rd. in Charleston over the next month.
A special open house that showed off the space during last week’s bike races in South Hills was followed by an invitation-only “friends and family” soft opening that starts this week and runs throughout the month of June.
The restaurant expects to officially open to the public shortly before or after the Fourth of July holiday.
Lots of work has been happening in the space since I first broke the news last October that James Beard Award-winning chef and 1010 Bridge Restaurant owner Paul Smith was opening a new Italian restaurant inside the building that formerly housed Bridge Road Bistro in the city’s South Hills neighborhood.
The new restaurant’s owners include Smith and his wife, Carrie, along with Steven and Trey Frame, his business partners at The Pitch Sports Bar & Grill at the Shawnee Sports Complex.
Smith led me on a private walk-through of the space last week and here’s a sneak peek at the layout, atmosphere, food and drinks you can expect when his new place fully opens its doors in a few weeks.
A Similar Layout That’s Been Totally Reimagined
Although the layout at Paulie’s is similar to how Bridge Road Bistro was set up – bar in the front, dining room in the middle, kitchen in the back – the whole look, feel and vibe of the place has been completely remodeled into something fresh and new.
The space was largely gutted and rebuilt inside with new floors, walls, tables, chairs, paint, lights, décor, wine racks and more – including a new stylish bar with lush brown leather chairs and a lounge area up front featuring oversized leather chairs and an old classic Italian Ducati motorcycle perched against one wall.
New high-top tables fill the space alongside the bar, with a low dividing wall featuring a painted glass panel still separating the bar and main dining areas. Those main dining areas, however, have been reimagined, featuring new soft lighting, warm colors and several decorative touches.
The old booths in Bridge Road Bistro’s dining room have been removed, with the wood from them used to build new bench seating that runs the length of the restaurant on one side.
Beautiful new custom-crafted wooden tables and black-and-white Italian-style chairs now fill the main dining area that remains in the middle of the room.
New stained-glass accents and old family photos and pictures of famous Italian people and places adorn the walls, some creatively manipulated to include the Paulie’s logo in fun ways.
A small private dining room still exists on the side, but has been redone with wine racks covering the walls and new high-tech AV capabilities for hosting business dinners and meetings.
You’ll still see an open kitchen in the back, but it’s now shiny and new with the former adjacent chef’s table facing it replaced with a dining room-facing counter where servers will put the finishing touches on dishes – scraping cheese from a giant wheel, drizzling olive oil and such – before bringing them to your table.
An outdoor patio that was built during COVID but never used at the previous restaurant has been spruced up with a decorative painted fence, custom-built wooden planters and new tables ready to welcome guests for alfresco food and cocktails.
Paulie’s Parlor Room behind the restaurant (formerly the Walnut Room) was redecorated and has been hosting private receptions, wedding dinners and more for the past few months at 954 Walnut Rd.
“It’s been nice showing off small parts of the new restaurant for those groups,” Smith said, “but we’re really excited to finally open our doors to the public soon.”
Food and Drinks Rooted in Italian Tradition
Now that you have a sense of the layout of the new place, let’s get to the food and drinks you can enjoy while you’re there.
The new bar has been stylishly redone with shiny new bright red painted taps that will serve Italian classics like Prosecco and Aperol Spritz on tap.
That last part bears repeating. Aperol Spritz on tap!
Made with Prosecco, Aperol liqueur and a splash of club soda with a slice of orange, it’s a traditional Italian cocktail more prevalent than water in that country, especially during the summer months.
An old-fashioned hand-cranked martini shaker has been mounted on the bar, representing Paulie’s martini-focused cocktail selections, which will be accompanied by Italian beers and wines.
“Those drinks will pair nicely with a menu full of authentic old-world Italian flavors from treasured family recipes,” Smith told me, getting visibly excited as he started teasing some of the dishes his team will be serving. Paulie’s is named after one of the chef’s childhood nicknames and will pay homage to his family’s rich Italian heritage – specifically to his grandfather, Joe Fish, who taught him how to cook as a young boy.
The restaurant will be making “Sunday ribbons,” which is his family’s 10-hour tomato gravy that most of us know as a deeply flavored tomato sauce for pasta that simmers on the stove all day until dinner time.
“We’ll have fire-roasted pizzas hot out of a new Woodstone oven that came from Chicago, a 20-hour lasagna Bolognese, flounder Puttanesca (a Naples-born dish typically flavored with tomatoes, olives, capers, anchovies, garlic, pepperoncino, extra-virgin olive oil and salt) and a Paulie’s cut steak with fried artichokes, potatoes and Calabrian (pepper) honey-glazed carrots,” he said.
“You can start your meal with some fried anchovy-stuffed olives with Marcona almonds or oysters that are flash-heated in the pizza oven and finished with spicy Calabrian butter. And you can end the evening with a nice chocolate budino (a traditional Italian cream dessert) with espresso caramel or Panettone (an Italian fruit-and-nut butter cake) bread pudding.”
A Decades-Long Dream Comes to Fruition
Those are just a few of the items that will be offered, of course, and Smith said you can expect to enjoy them with the same attentive service his 1010 Bridge Restaurant is known for just a few doors down the street on Bridge Road.
Opening a new restaurant is always hard, he said, but Paulie’s has been hiring and training its new staff for weeks and months, not just days before opening. He said he hopes that’s a difference his customers notice, because taking good care of guests is something that’s paramount to his beliefs.
He said crews have done an incredible job transforming the space into a place that will feel warm and welcoming the second folks walk in.
“That’s what I grew up with – families making memories while enjoying a great meal together – so that’s exactly what we want this new place to be.”
So how does Smith feel seeing all of this hard work, investment and sacrifice finally come to fruition, knowing there’s are undeniable demands and high expectations that come from a highly regarded chef taking another swing for the fences?
“I’m really excited, but also a little nervous,” he confided. “I’m not usually like that, but this is a bigger restaurant and we’ve put so much time and money into it. It’s a little scary, I’m not going to lie, but we’ve put our heart and soul into this place and we’re ready to do this.”
And in his trademark “a rising tide raises all boats” fashion, he also believes there’s room for Paulie’s to succeed in Charleston in addition to – and not instead of – other Italian restaurants.
“We’re thrilled with Leonoro’s being around for 100 years, Ristorante Abruzzi doing so well and Fazio’s now under new management. I think people here are really embracing our Appalachian Italian heritage.”
IF YOU GO: Paulie’s Fine Italian is located at 915 Bridge Rd. in Charleston’s South Hills neighborhood where Bridge Road Bistro once operated. A public opening date has not yet been announced, but you can follow the restaurant’s Facebook page for updates.
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Steven Keith is a food writer and restaurant critic known as “The Food Guy” who writes a weekly column for the Charleston Gazette-Mail and has appeared in several state, regional and national culinary publications. Follow him online at www.wvfoodguy.com or on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. He can be reached at 304-380-6096 or at wvfoodguy@aol.com.