When I first saw the ad on Craigslist, the only restaurant I could think of was Lovely Hula Hands. Turns out I was right. This arrived today:
“CHANGES AT LOVELY HULA HANDS
Saturday October 28th will be our last night in our little pink house. We will also be celebrating our third anniversary this weekend with cupcakes from St Cupcake for all. We obviously have a bittersweet feeling about moving on from the pink house but as our new building is almost done and gets more and more beautiful everyday, we get more and more excited. Along with the many changes that are happening for us right now we are also very happy to have Troy MacLarty as our new Chef. Troy has lived in Portland for the last two years and spent time at Ripe family supper, Saucebox, and more recently at one of our favorites, Simpatica Dining Hall. Before that he spent four years at the world renowned Chez Panisse in Berkeley California. Troy brings a love of local products and enthusiasm for cooking that makes Jesse, Jane and myself even more excited for the big move. If everything goes well we plan to reopen in early November. Please continue to check our website for concrete dates, pictures, and more information.
Thanks to all who have been so supportive over the past three years.Sincerely, Sarah Minnick”
Remember, you heard it here 4 days ago. We now return you to our previous gossip.
Well Crap! So it’s kinda sort of true after all. Grrr… SOMEBODY I won’t name, who knew the truth, sidestepped the question and assured me this was all just a rumor. Wait… Let me find their email:
Morgan is taking his first true vacation since opening 3 years ago, (and working 80 + hour weeks that whole time).
Thanks for asking.
Now comes further confirmation from Oregon Live’s Karen Brooks:
“Star chef Morgan Brownlow is taking a two-month leave from Clarklewis — and may not be returning.”
As we all know, Morgan and Nomi Hebberoy lost their ownership last year. It seems Chef Brownlow is missing having that control.
Again from Oregon Live:
“To earn back his ownership, Brownlow says, involves repaying Howitt potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars from restaurant’s coffers — an amount that feels out of reach. Howitt contends it’s not an “all or nothing” financial situation.”
The Oregon Live article contains more details, you can [read it here - link to Oregonian now dead]
So let’s see. I broke this news yesterday, then told you to forget it, now I’m telling you it is true after all. Sweet Tanqueray, you whisper in my ear. I’m coming. Next time I’m just gonna go with the story.
__________________________________________
On the other hand, an interesting advert on CraigsList:
“Our well respected restaurant is relocating and we are looking to expand our kitchen staff with a motivated, experienced sous chef. Looking for someone that is a “cook” and not a recipe follower. Someone with opinions as well as an open mind.
Our chef spent 4 years at Chez Panisse and was formerly the chef at family supper here in Portland. That background will be expressed in a rotating menu that features seasonal, local ingredients and well grounded techniques.
If you are someone that is passionate about food, willing to learn, willing to teach and lead a line, please respond.”
Obviously the chef is Troy, of Ripe. Anyone choose to speculate about what restaurant is moving, and where?
__________________________________________
Email, RSS etc — do you think that these problems are also why my Yahoo home page is saying there are no new items on this site in the past three days?
Good to know that Troy is ending up at the helm somewhere! I think he is wildly talented and a very nice person. I would have sad if he would have end up leaving town.
I really wish him best and hope that he’ll associate himself with folks that respect him and let him fly.
On the same line, can somebody grab Tommy Habetz and give him the freedom to do what he does best?
Time to update again. You have confirmation. You had it mostly right:
http://oregonianarts.blogs.oregonlive.com/default.asp?item=244909
I was actually hoping this wasn’t true. I’ve been hearing raves about the food at CL.
I don’t think you ever approved my comment so it looks like you’re talking to yourself. ;-)
As I said, I am very disappointed as well. I don’t usually editorialize on my news items, but here’s what I wrote:
“…this seems unfortunate. It certainly wasn’t the food that was the problem there, in my opinion. Most complaints rightly focused on the uncomfortable seating, noisy industrial interior, poor lighting, and too-often hipper-than-thou service.”
I had a very good meal there at the end of summer with several others. We tried nearly every appetizer on the menu — like 12 dishes — and most were winners.
Do these investors know what they’re doing or do they just feel the need to shake things up, like when a big corporation dumps their CEO to try to build market confidence when truly that CEO has been doing the best he can with the tools he’s given?
btw, are you a big Spinal Tap fan? Because the answer to your spam protection always seems to be 11 for me.
Oops. I talk to myself all day.
The spam thing is random. I swear. Actually, it shouldn’t even ask you since you are signed in. Maybe you have to be registered.
Registerred now so I can more easily and readily annoy your readers who come here to get away from me elsewhere.
Interesting timing about clarkewis. My dining compadre and I finally got around to dining there for the first time this past weekend, and we both came away from the experience wondering what the ballyhoo is all about.
We split 5 dishes, only 1 of which – pears wrapped in speck – was tasty and memorable. The risotto came highly recommended but was merely loose grains of rice with sausage — not risotto-like at all (and kinda like the leftovers I make at home.) Other dishes were surprisingly bland and forgettable.
On plus side of things, our server did a fine job recommending what sizes of each dish we’d want to order, and she was attentive without being obtrusive. We also really liked the space.
However, as has been mentioned many times before, the cheap-ass, painful chairs and low-set tables make for an uncomfortable dining experience at quite a high price.
I had Morgan’s cooking a couple of times at ripe, and I dug it. But the best I can say about clarklewis is that the space is cool. Doubt I’ll be back.
hey portland
thanks for wondering
time will tell
best to you all
morgan
I hate to say “I told you so….”
You know the rest.
As someone who never really thought LHH was all that good, I’m looking forward to version 2.0.
btw, you’ll want to check this out:
http://www.extramsg.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1634
Gelato? I don’t get it.
Dennis – if I ran every rumor I get from someone I don’t know, I’d have a dozen a day. Most turn out to be false. For that reason, I err on the careful side. Of course now you have a ton of credibility with me, so I’ll listen next time ;)
Did you click on the link, or just copy and paste? Try again. Otherwise, see the trans-fat news item on the home page.
Ah, yes. I did read that. Thanks!
Thanks MSG for putting up the trans-fat story. I don’t read WW on a regular basis so I would have missed it otherwise.
Unfortunately for the rest of the world, I spat out alot of gobbledygook about it late last night.
I can see how Morgan Brownlow would want to take some time off from the daily grind of running a kitchen, especially after all the stress of the past year with the business meltdown and money issues. Maybe during this two months off, he will get re-energized and come back with new ideas for the restaurant.
It’s unreasonable to assume that because Morgan is not in the clarklewis kitchen that the current menu will not be enjoyable. In many kitchens, the sous chef, line cooks and other staff are more than capable of executing the established recipes whilst the owner/chef is not in the kitchen. Taking a page from A. Bourdain, he points out that no, Emeril is probably not in the kitchen making your food. His staff is and they are trained to do exactly that.
So, let’s not give up on clarklewis just yet.
A couple points, though, grapedog:
1) unlike Emeril, Brownlow IS in the kitchen most of the time. He’s the one with the vision. He’s the one on whose shoulders the quality control rests. It may not be unreasonable to believe that things will continue fine without him — hell, they could even improve; we don’t know for sure. But in most cases, when you lose an integral person like the chef, things are at minimum going to change. So it’s quite reasonable to assume that things will fall off, especially as the time extends away from the current menu that they’ve been doing day in and day out. I’ll take my dishes one at a time on my next visit. You can TOFTT.
2) I find it hard to believe he’s just taking some time off to get re-energized. Maybe he is, but more likely, in my mind, he’s having a power/money struggle with the owners and trying to prove how integral he is to the operation or they’re trying to prove how non-integral he is to the operation. Either way. Over on PortlandFood.org Ken gave a dozen reasonable scenarios and none of them are good. If it was just to be re-energized, I think we’d get a more upbeat response above, rather than some vague and foreboding haiku. If he stays gone the whole two months and they don’t kiss and make up before that, I expect we’ll see bigger changes there. I think it’d be interesting to see Brownlow go guest chef at a place like Simpatica while he’s on “sabbatical”.
S: you and I need to meet at El Fogon.
hey extramsg
thanks for wondering
let me know time
sportsmanship, books
best to you
-s
I think speaking in haiku is the way to go. MSG, I’ll send you an email.
And for those who don’t know what El Fogon is, it’s a new Mexican place in Keizer that specializes in interior and Mayan dishes. I did a first look write-up, and the Statesman has done an interesting puff piece. I don’t remember seeing the ravioli with the crickets on top on the menu, but I wasn’t in a pasta mood the day we went. Their new menu will have rattlesnake and venison items.
I hope LHH adds some microbrews to the menu. I went once, had a nice meal, but never returned because there were no beer choices. I understand wanting to push (more expensive) wine, but this is Portland. That is all.
hello all,
grapedog – i believe your comments on clarklewis are spot on in regards to his staff and not writing them off just yet.
morgan is a very talented and passionate chef who has surrounded himself with a talented staff that share his passion for local, seasonal, and inspired food. ben has been with morgan since the beginning with a brief hiatus after a year or so. he is more than capable of not only writing the menu, but executing it and managing the staff.
the truth is that all of morgans’ sous chefs have, for varying degrees of time, written and exectuted the menu. i believe anyone here would be hard-pressed to be able to distinguish the difference.
i can’t comment on the current situation with the ‘leave of absence’, since only those truly involved know the reasons. i could speculate, but it would be just that, speculation. i will say that even in the greatest of kitchens that produce the best food, there are difficult personal issues, conflicts, problems, and dramas that have to be contended with. ..maybe even more so….
in closing, i just want to reiterate that the cl staff is superior. it is incredibly difficult to execute a menu that changes drastically on a daily basis at all, let alone to the standards that morgan, and they, hold themselves to.
bc
a chef once told me
as i cooked for michael bauer
she said
“i’m only as good as the cooks”
I agree with bc the staff at CL is superior, it’s just too bad that the chef and partners aren’t. if your only as good as your cooks why would you need to “go on leave” and leave them to try to clean up the mess?
Are you saying that a chef shouldn’t be allowed a vacation?
of course, any chef definitely deserves a vacation. but this just isn’t a trip to the coast for a week. obviously there is more going on here.
regardless, for the cooks who remain at cl, this is an opportunity. an opportunity to show you have what it takes. step up. take responsibility. push yourself harder than you ever did when big daddy was over your shoulder.
prove that there will be no “drop-off” in quality and consistency like everyone is predicting.
gotta look at the light at the end of the tunnel, brother
bc
or cut your losses and move on
Brooks’s platter piece on Friday made it sound very operatic (if that opera is of the soap kind).
I liked WWeek’s piece, but what the heck is up with the accompanying photos? They are beyond amateurish…
As for Saltzman, I’d like to see him try it. It would probably come down to a match between Saltzman and Randy “pro-business” Leonard, and I’d place my bets on Leonard who, no doubt will have groups of all kinds of deep pocket business associations behind him.
Regardless, it seems too early to speculate.
I wrote on my blog that I think WWeek is just stirring up the proverbial political poo. Saltzman’s response indicated to me that he thinks a great idea that he’ll never have the political will to support via a vote.
Given the city’s history, instead of doing a trans-fat ban, they’ll just force all restaurants to be city owned after which they will stop using the fats.
bc says you gotta see the light at the end of the tunnel…that’s ironic coming from you! If anyone’s seen the light at the end of the tunnel…
Also I didn’t say a chef doesn’t deserve a vacation, I meant thousands of chefs work that much and more and don’t get time off. What’s the big deal that’s the nature of the industry, so obviously something else is going on here, forced vacation?
touche!!