This week the 14850 Dining Report is celebrating some new weekday lunch options around town. The Ithaca Ale House in Downtown Ithaca has daily lunch specials alongside their regular menu, and Ciao! Wood-Fired Pizza and Pasta up in the northeast is open for lunch for the first time in six years. At the Ithaca Ale House, the week begins with Monday specials of Chicken & Biscuits and a Buffalo Chicken Sandwich, followed by Chicken Saltimbocca or a Corned Beef Rachel sandwich on Tuesdays. Wednesday features a Caesar Steak Sandwich and an Italian Delight Pie. Related: A new round of daily lunch specials at Downtown’s Ithaca Ale House On Thursdays, the lunch specials include a Beef on Weck sandwich or a Meatball Sub. Fridays mean a choice of sandwiches, either Hot Cheddar and Roast Beef or a Beer Battered Fish. Once the weekend arrives, there are lunch and brunch offerings, with a Bo Burger (that’s an Ithaca specialty with a fried egg) or an Omelet of the week on Saturdays, and on Sunday there’s a choice of Steak & Eggs or Chicken & Waffles. All week, the regular menu remains available at lunchtime. Up the hill off North Triphammer Road, Ciao! is now opening Monday through Friday at 11:30am. On the weekend they’re still opening at 4 for dinner, weekday happy hour are 4-6, and they’re open until 9 daily. Related: At long last, weekday lunch returns to Ciao in Ithaca’s northeast! The lunch menu looks like a simplified version of Ciao’s dinner menu, with many of the same 11-inch pizzas cooked in the brick oven, plus a few appetizers, salads, panini sandwiches, and lunch-sized (and lunch-priced) portions of several pasta dishes like lasagna or rigatoni scarpiello and specialties such as eggplant or chicken parmesan. Each day of the week there’s a different daily $15 special from the wood-fired oven, such as a calzone, stromboli, even a Friday fish fry. Panini prices start at 12 bucks and the pizzas are $15-23 and totally shareable, especially if you pair them with an appetizer or a salad. Find the Ithaca Ale House at 301 East State Street and Ciao at 2 Hickory Hollow Lane, and tell them you heard about them here. Listen to the 14850 Dining Podcast in Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, Audible, or RSS Feed, listen on WVBR, or follow 14850 Dining on Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and Twitter or sign up for our newsletter.
