It’s been a while, but good things come to those who wait! News, News, News (and gossip!)
Lots of openings: Cacao has opened their 2nd location, this in the corner of The Heathman. It’s a charming shop in a perfect location (and I almost never use the word “charming”.)
The eagerly anticipated Lincoln Restaurant will be opening on NE Williams this Friday. We hope to have a sample menu posted soon.
A new venture by Joe Rapport, owner of JoPa on Beaverton Hillsdale Highway, 50 Plates is getting ready to open, with media dinner on July 16th. We weren’t invited (snubbed!), but will have a few spies there anyway. They’ve been a bit closed lipped about what their focus will be; even the press invite is a bit obtuse. However, word has trickled down that they will have a killer bar staff, and a serious coffee training program. It’s in the new Aveda building in the Pearl District.
Finally, Belly, the new restaurant going into the old Terroir spot, has a press dinner in late July. It’s getting busy around here!
One delay, Kevin Ludwig’s eagerly anticipated restaurant, Beaker & Flask, has pushed back their opening date until late August to September. Kevin has hired chef Benjamin Bettinger, most recently chef de cuisine at Paley’s Place, Doug Paquin to handle the beer, and well-known bartender Lance Mayhew. The restaurant at 720 SE Sandy will be about 1900 square feet. The cuisine should be Northern European. I haven’t been this excited about a new Portland restaurant in a very long time!
Details Magazine wrote about the Bye and Bye bar in their latest issue: Summer Cocktail Bars. “Take your potent margarita to a picnic table out back and revel in the relaxed atmosphere of a perfectly conceived neighborhood bar.” Looks like they got some help from The Portland Tribune. (link no longer works)
There was an interesting article last week in the NY Times on the increasing popularity of home made beer cellars in the U.S. The article was written by local food writer Lucy Burningham. It is Lucy’s first article in The Times.
Speaking of local authors, be sure to catch Heidi Yorkshire’s great interview with M.F.K. Fisher in the latest Edible Portland Magazine. It’s excellent, and the photo is stunning. If you haven’t been reading this magazine, you are missing out. Many of the articles are great, and if you keep your eyes open, you can get it for free. I pick mine up at the Ecotrust Building – it’s in the lobby. No one has ever yelled “Stop thief!” at me, but I keep hoping.
I’ll write a bit more about M.F.K Fisher next week.
I posted before about Carafe owner Pascal Sauton’s ambition to finish a triathlon. Remember that weekend a while back that was 95 degrees? That was the day Pascal fulfilled his dream – at 50 years old. Amazing! Not only that, but he raised a substantial amount of money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Be sure to congratulate him when you stop by the restaurant.
Portland seems to be the land of craft distillers. We have 17(!) microdistelleries, with 8 more expected. Just about every week I’m getting another press release from one of them. Integrity Spirits, producers of Lovejoy Vodka, its new “Trillium” Absinthe – one of the first legally-available absinthe products in the United States, and the first ever produced in its home state – is now on shelves in Oregon liquor stores.
Many distill out of warehouses in an industrialized part of southeast Portland. Also on this corridor will be a few breweries, wineries and the much-anticipated September debut of a restaurant featuring Kevin Ludwig and Lance J. Mayhew, two of the city’s best bartenders. Talks have begun about creating tour signs and a catchy nickname for this area.
Hmm… maybe we can come up with a nickname. Drunken Flats? The Seattle Times suggests Distillery Row. Actually has a nice ring to it:
Artisan spirits in Portland are so sophisticated that advocates such as Oregon Distillers Guild President Lee Medoff, who also co-owns House Spirits Distillery, are convinced spirits can pair with food just as wines do. Some of the city’s top restaurants agree. Simpatica Dining Hall, Park Kitchen and Paley’s Place all occasionally feature tasting menus with cocktails and spirits.
That’s a sore point with traditionalists such as Clear Creek’s McCarthy who believe the alcohol content is too high to pair with food. That it’s a topic of discussion in restaurant kitchens and bars shows how big the distillery scene has grown in a city billed as “the capital of microbrewery.”
The wine world is very interesting these days – first with Columbia and Mt Hood beer division being spun off into a new entity owned and operated by Columbia, leaving Mt Hood with no trucks to deliver their product (the trucks went with the beer in the deal), and then Columbia buying the wine portfolio from Mt Hood separately. Now one of our best smaller producers, Domaine Selections, has been sold to 2 guys from Seattle with zero experience in the wine world or Portland – just some guys who made money in high tech and wanted to do some wine thing for fun. Oy. It’s going to be a long and interesting year of changes and consolidations. On the other hand, with the consolidations, I suspect we’ll see a bunch of inventory dumped at or below cost, so there should be some really good wine deals coming up.
Just so you know, I’m still around, and still working on reviews. I just took some time off to see family and attend The Fancy Food Show in NYC. While I was there I did go to the Bamn Automat, indulged in lots of amazing bagels, and incredible ramen.
Although it was sweltering and muggy, the show was a cool oasis of thousands and thousands of food samples. A gourmet’s Eden, with over 180,000 food and beverage products, and 2,400 exhibitors from 77 countries in 60 international and domestic pavilions, most of them offering samples. All those little samples do add up – a nibble of Jamon Iberico from the Spain section, a generous cup of Gelato from Italy, baked goods, wonderful Indian chutneys and naan breads, Turkish stuffed pickled peppers, Feta and olives from Israel, Skewers of grilled meats with exotic spices, Artisan cheeses galore from every cheese making country out there, quality crackers and savory baked goods, Vinegars, oils and spices,Thai noodles, buttery smoked fishes of all kinds, jams, teas, coffees, exotic sodas, juices, and beverages of all kinds. cookies, ice creams, pastries, cakes, tarts, pies and more chocolate than I could possibly eat. If you ever get a chance to go, check it out. It is quite the experience!
At this point, I’m pretty sure everything below is true (with the corrections) – except for the Menu Guide thing. They wrote to say it was news to them!
Everything below this line is hearsay or gossip. None of it is verified.
Never mind: It’s all true
From a reader,
Here’s a funny story for you:
A group of seven people including some Portland chefs went to Lucier for dinner last week. They ordered a bottle of wine. The waiter came back and told them that despite the fact that it was on the list, the staff couldn’t find the wine.
They ordered another bottle of wine. The waiter came back and told them that despite the fact that it was on the list, the staff couldn’t find the wine.
They ordered another bottle of wine. The waiter came back and told them that despite the fact that it was on the list, the staff couldn’t find the wine.
It happened two more times.
Finally, Donny Sullivan came over and kicked them out. He said they were harassing his staff and that he was paying their tab.
In all my restaurant experiences, I’ve never heard of a party of diners being asked to leave because they wanted to drink wine that was on the wine list.
The chefs are named in the comments below. Of course there are two sides to every story, and now I’ve heard both sides. It’s interesting.
(Y’all know why the original sommelier at Lucier was fired, right? What! It’s such a good story, but I can’t repeat it here ;)
There has been a rumor floating around about the old Harrison’s/Tondero spot in the Fox Tower (It was something else after Harrison’s, but the name escapes me at the moment). I’ve heard third-hand) that it is going to be reopening as something called Rare, by Junki Yoshida some of the guys who are running what’s left of Hayden Properties. Supposedly a preview dinner was held back in June, and they are looking for a fall opening.
I’ve gone by several times, and there is definitely activity going on, but until another some industrious reporter confirms it, I’d say it’s just a rumor.
None of this is true: Someone wrote saying that Portland Menu Guide was kaput. No independent verification, and the web site is still up. Money issues. Hmm… I’ve got some questions for somebody
It’s spelled Fisher, not Fischer. M.F.K. Fisher.
Doh! I only have on of her books sitting on my desk! Thanks!
In the downtime before opening Beaker and Flask, Ben Bettinger has been working at the James John Cafe in St. Johns.
As it slowly transforms from a coffee shop into a full restaurant, Ben and Suzanne have been doing some excellent Sunday-night reservation-only dinners. I was there last Sunday and had a chilled cucumber soup with a house-smoke trout garnish, grilled squid salad (over many types of beans, none of which I remember), and a grilled hanger steak and salsa verde entree. The dessert was a blueberry cake with lemon cream. It was pretty damn awesome, esp. for $30.
RE: Lincoln
We went to a preview dinner for Lincoln last night. Really gorgeous interior and great staff.
On the beverage front: I had two cocktails: an Elderflower Gimlet (Aviation, St. G, lime, etc) and The Jasmine (gin, Cointreau, Campari and lemon). Both well-made drinks were a perfect antidote to the sun streaming in the floor-to ceiling windows. The beer list, however, will surely leave you napping. Just three taps and two bottles on the list…what’s a beer drinking body have to do to get some suds around here?! I guess the bubbles will have to come from their three handmade sodas (blueberry, cherry and ginger). I tried the blueberry; in a word, WOW. Those sodas could make me be the designated driver for a change.
The space has a fantastic bar area, and I am hoping that they will have a bar menu as delicious as their dinner menu to go along with it.
Tell us more about the food, anything groundbreaking or earth shattering?
If you are looking for molecular gastronomy or twee plates, please go elsewhere. Things seem to be done simply and cleanly here: just good ingredients prepared simply. It’s unfair to judge an entire menu or a restaurant after tasting just a few dishes. Also, I was invited as a friend not as a critic. But I will say that I have been recommending it to people all weekend!
I also want to mention how good the service was. Service has always been a pet peeve of mine here in PDX, but Lincoln on opening night does a better job than a whole lot of places around the city.
i know this is an annoying comment, but you might like to know that whatever kind of wonky code you use to format your blog makes it look like total garbage when reading via livejournal feed. or maybe it’s just my livejournal settings. your pictures never show up, either.
You might try a different feed reader. I use several, and it looks fine in all of mine (though pictures are sometimes missing – I think that is a feedburner issue).
On the Lucier wine thing.
Happened to my wife and I last week. Ordered two different bottles of rose bubbles off the printed wine list. Both times a guy came buy with a much larger three ring binder of wine with all sorts of marks on it and explained he could not locate the bottles we had ordered. He suggested one rose that he could locate but that it was not chilled and would require 20min to chill before it could be served.
For a place with such a large investment in wine you would think they at least knew where the wine actually lived.
I just wanted to leave a comment about the Lucier Post above…. I was dining at the table where the chefs were asked to leave I assure you that It is not a rumor, and That It really did happen. There were only Six of us though…. The Chefs names in queastion were.
Daniel Mondock, Sel Gris
Matthew Stauss, Acaida
and Patrick from the Carlye
This story is not Gossip. It really happen
I’d consider this confirmed then, since I’ve now heard this from four people!
FD,
You usually do a good job of staying away from pure gossip, but I’m left to wonder if this would have been posted in news if it weren’t for the presence of some chefs at the table.
Still waiting for Donny Sullivan’s side of the story…
If the story above is true, it makes me wonder about the Lucier management. I would think that a good server would apologize to the table for not being able to find the wine they have on the wine list, and then offer them a free bottle for the inconvenience!
This is not the first complaint of “cant find the bottle”. Its funny but whatever the story is behind Scotts’ dismal. He was so frustrated with his bosses because he was worried of this exact situation. That was one of the reasons he was
so frustrated with his management.
For a restaurant that only hires people with 4 star experience. They dont have the basics down. Hire a cellar rat! If you dont know what one is, then you never worked a fine dining establishment. It cant be money. So it has to be ignorance.
My question is, you design a beautiful restaurant. How come you never figure on proper storage for the wine? I mean you invest a small forutne in it. Why not some adequete on site storage for at least 25%? and store the rest as you already do. Take away the condo purchase.
For a restaurant this far in, and with all the “managers” they have on staff, they should be in a little better shape.
I was the captain at the table in question at Lucier. I’ve been in the Portland food scene for 6+ years (first at Fife, then Wildwood). I’m not going to go into detail of what got these people kicked out, but it was not because we couldn’t find the wine (the ONE bottle they ordered through me).
What I will tell you is that I apologized to the people who were not the cause of the problems as they left. I can also tell everyone that Donny was nothing but gracious as he told everyone, “You are all welcome to come back and start fresh. For tonight, though, I am going to have to ask you to leave.”
That’s all from my end. I probably shouldn’t have posted anything about this in the first place. But everyone that I work with at Lucier is in it for the pleasure of the experience. It’s filled with kind, giving people that love the opportunity to provide an amazing experience. If it isn’t an amazing experience, I’ve watched the kitchen and/or Donny doing things that surprise me to make it one.
I just don’t want to watch as good people are spat upon through the internet rumor mill.
Michael,
You get points from me both for responding and how you responded. Some things are better left off the webs and I have a feeling this is one of those. Kudos to you for taking the higher ground.
re: Lucier.
That’s not quite what happened. I believe it was only two bottles of wine that couldn’t be found, still very sad. And the chefs were drunk when they arrived and were loud, obnoxious and were in fact insulting to the staff, especially Mondok and that’s why they were asked to leave, not beacause they couldn’t find the wine. Supposedly they also ordered something like 4 dozen oysters and the kitchen would only give them 3 dozen, again pretty sad for a restaurant that has oysters on the menu.
Wow. The wine situation at Lucier sounds completely bizarre. I can’t believe that no one in the restaurant knows how to read wine labels. Something else has to be going on. Maybe they don’t actually have all the bottles on the wine list. Or maybe they just left them all in their boxes and crammed them into a condo across the street…
I know I already commented. But I thought of another issue. Lucier has been opened a month at least correct? Have they not done an inventory of goods??? I cannot believe an operation attached to the huge OSF corporation does not have “bean counters” who require a monthly inventory. That alone should make the “new” wine staff account for the inventory….wierd huh???? Simple restaurant A,B,C’s.
Careful, Micheal, most people in Portland get their can kicked to the street for defending themselves on this site. Best to just let it go, and keep doing your job to the best of your ability. The gossip will die down quickly enough. Take it from me, I’ve been there.
Hey now! Only if they are idiots, or their post is a completely transparent sham.
Spanky:
Drunk, Loud, and Obnoxious???
Drunk: Hardly, considering we couldn’t find a bottle available from there list.
Loud: Hard to be quiet, when you are one of the only tables in the restaurant.
Obnoxious: The only thing obnoxious about the evening was the service. 45 minutes wait on four dozen Kumomoto oysters in which we only recieved three dozen. Wine lost in transit from the Lucier lounge to our table in the dinning room. It was a two hour wait from being seated at our table before entrees arrived, and only two of six were presented to the table. Not to mention the above wine situation, which I admit was blown a little out of proportion. Were all factors in our table being “OBNOXIOUS”. I think that a better word would be annoyed and frusterated with our dinning experience.
We came to Lucier to spend money and for a great meal. We truly left with a once in a lifetime and unique experience. I look forward to my next vist and hope that its a better memory than the first.
Aloha from Espana…kidding, I’m in Hollywood (lame, I know).. Anyway, my friend and client informed me today that there was an Internet rumor that one of our publications was “kaput”. While it’s flattering to be gossiped about, it’s categorically untrue. I do dream of retirement but we continue to kick out magazines that are ultimately pieces of art and that are relevant to the community. The Portland Menu Guide is no exception. We love this food and wine publication and feel honored to work with the people we come in contact with. We’ve learned from the best of the best about starting and sustaining a business from the likes of Michael Cronan (sorry, Michael… he HATES press) and Wendy Lange, who have built businesses we admire. Thanks again for the press but The Portland Menu Guide will be around for longer than most of us. It’s one of those magazines that is a pleasure to produce.
Thanks for reading and supporting.
My best and lets hope for peace on earth,
Siobhan
OK, some of these comments seem to confirm something that I’ve heard, which is that Lucier stores its wine in a nearby condominium.
True?
I mean, you can probably buy a South Waterfront condo cheaper than a wine cellar these days (and it would give amorous staff and guests a place to canoodle, I suppose) — but why would a restaurant that spent millions on a from-scratch buildout not include a wine room in the plans? There’s got to be a logical reason, but I can’t think of it.
Michael?
What is happening at Lucier? I’m in the industry but out of the loop on this one. I guess I haven’t really asked around, but now I’m getting curious. Why was the sommelier fired? What is this about a condo? They bought a condo to store wine? That’s just crazy. Anyone out here willing to catch a few people on the whole story?
There already is a name for that section of Southeast where all the new microbreweries and distilleries are working out of. The owner of the Green Dragon dubbed the area Libation Alley almost a year ago when they all began to move in.
http://pdxgreendragon.com/libation-alley
Libation Alley? That sounds like realtor or PR bullshit to me. That’s the stupidest crap I’ve ever heard. I work in the industry and have never once heard that. Where are we, Denver?
I believe it was coined by Jim Parker, the guy who wrote that web page. Presumably he’s in the industry as well. You can probably find him at the Green Dragon and tell him bollocks yourself.