Foley has a new Italian restaurant, and despite its high-quality menu items, it is more affordable than you might think.

“We're fast casual,” says Portabella's owner Chuck Brasher. “It's not a pretentious Italian place. We serve good food fast at a moderate price.”

Portabella's is Brasher's first solo restaurant venture, but it's certainly not his first experience in the food industry.

After growing up on a farm, Brasher began working in restaurants while he was a student at Mississippi State University and then worked for food distributor Sysco for 12 years, eventually becoming district manager in Louisiana.

Brasher also ran a catering, wholesale and specialty products business in north Mississippi before moving to Alabama in 2007 and becoming general manager at Fly Creek Cafe in Fairhope for two years.

After Fly Creek closed, he decided it was time to take all he had learned from working in the industry and open his own restaurant.

“Throughout my career, I worked with good chefs and really good cooks, and I was able to absorb a lot of cuisine and prep ideas as well as marketing skills from hundreds of different (Sysco) customers,” he said. “I just looked and watched.”

The Portabella's menu is simple and features usual Italian fare made with high-quality ingredients — pastas, salads, pizzas and sandwiches. Pastas range in price from $7 to $12, and pizzas are priced at $7.95 for an 8-inch and $14.95 for a 14-inch.

Brasher says he chose Italian food because people are comfortable with it, and there aren't many other Italian restaurants in the Foley area. He also noticed other fast casual Italian restaurants were doing well across the country.

“I felt like Foley presented a great opportunity for this kind of concept,” Brasher says. “It makes people feel more comfortable. Italian is safe and reliable. That's all this concept is; it's comfort food. It's down-to-earth, and that's how we present it. We serve good food for the average person — they don't have to come in here and drop a bunch of money.”

However, comfortable and affordable doesn't mean average or dull, he says.

“You have to separate yourself and it can't be the same — you do have to push the boundaries a little bit,” Brasher says. “Instead of just black ripe olives, we use kalamata. We buy finer ingredients and products, like specialty made sausage. We also use a particular tomato from Italy for our sauce, even though it's more expensive and harder to get.”

And the commitment to quality is evident in the food.

The spinach salad is no salad mix — fresh spinach, pecans, feta, kalamata olives and red onion are all tossed in a house-made green onion vinaigrette. Salads are available in half and whole portions.

For pizzas, the marinara is made from scratch, and each pie is cooked in a deck oven at about 600 degrees.

“Because of that oven, the crust is going to look a little charred and black, but definitely not burnt,” Brasher says.

Portabella's has been open for three months, and Brasher says he's had nothing but positive feedback. Portabella's has a 91 percent approval rating and 24 reviews on UrbanSpoon.com, an online dining review website.

“Our clientele is everyone from 90 to 9 months,” Brasher says. “Ideally, that's what I want. We just want to be a good local hometown pizza place that serves a lot of other really good stuff.”