Updated 10:00pm.
Portland gets so much attention from the mainstream media these days, I wasn’t even going to mention the article in the NY Times today. However, the emails started rolling in yesterday afternoon, and by the time I got up this morning, I had over 25, so people must be interested.
Yes, we were mentioned a little bit in the September Gourmet Magazine
We were mentioned even more in the October Gourmet Magazine’s Annual Restaurant Issue: in an article called America’s Best Farm-To-Table Restaurants, Fife, Vindalho and Burgerville were listed under “Casual” (strange pairing there), Higgins is listed under “urban”, and Paley’s Place along with Newberg’s The Painted Lady are listed under Romantic/Special Occasions. Here is the blurb on Higgins:
The Northwest is known for salmon, and Higgins definitely has fantastic fish. But this is a place where the porcine overrules the piscine, as is conspicuously evidenced by the house-cured prosciutto that sometimes hangs above the cooks’ heads in the open kitchen. It’s silky and sweet—as complex as anything in Higgins’s vast repertoire of charcuterie, all of it made from locally raised pigs. The porky pleasure reaches its height in February, during choucroute garnie season, when you can get dishes of knockout sauerkraut heaped with a battery of sausages and a smoked pork loin so good it’ll make your head swirl.
Here is a link to the October Gourmet
And finally, the NY Times did a huge piece on September 26th. I think their editor is harboring fantasies of moving here. How else could one explain this title ”
In Portland, a Golden Age of Dining and Drinking
In the way New York drew artists in the ’50s, this city at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers seems to exert a magnetic lure on talented chefs who come from almost anywhere else and decide to stay right here. About the hardest thing to find in Portland these days is a homegrown chef.
Author Eric Asimov waxes poetic about our cheap real estate, Andy Ricker of PokPok, the Paley’s, Gabriel Rucker of Le Pigeon, Ken Forkish of Artisan Bakery and Artisan Pizza, Pascal of Carafe, Jason Barwikowski of Clyde Common… the article is a who’s who of the Portland food scene. Asimov did his homework.
They also spend part of the article talking about the Willamette wine country:
One recent arrival is Tony Soter, a longtime Napa Valley winemaker who last year moved here with his family. They are living in Portland as they build a house on their property in the Willamette Valley. The Soters have 200 acres on an east-west ridge with orchards, herds of sheep and goats, and 10 head of cattle.
“Napa is country only in name,” he said. “This is the real deal out here.”
You can read the article by clicking here.
I thought it was a well-written and informative article, but Eric Asimov certainly skipped over some very important Portland restaurants and notable chefs. What about Philippe Boulot? What about Bluehour, Saucebox, Higgins, 23Hoyt, and lots more.
I guess there’s just too much to name….
They covered Higgins, but I would argue that Bluehour and Saucebox are not exactly standout restaurants. Just ordinary. I’m not sure about the Heathman as I haven’t been in a while, but I think it probably falls in the same class.
Enjoy it while you can…Saveur just pegged Chicago as the next “it” city. Given the ratio of pages given to Polish and soul foods relative to the high end places, my guess is urban-ethnic is the next big thing. You heard it here first.
Cheap real estate eh? Must be a New Yorker.
Asimov’s article is all gloss and no grit.
I was tremendously amused by Mr. Forkish’s assertion that only six years ago we Portland natives weren’t familiar with croissants or rustic tarts.
…especially considering that Le Panier was around 25 years ago.
This reminds me of when the NYT discovered “Grunge” back in the 90s.
Just a shame nobody had the wit to pull off something like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunge_speak
(at least drop a “cob nobbler” refrerence).