SOME OF PORTLAND’S HOTTEST NEW RESTAURANTS AREN’T RESTAURANTS AT ALL — THEY’RE BARS

In the early 2000s, back when Portland’s restaurant scene started getting national attention, many people celebrated the city’s emphasis on hyper-locality, farm-to-table dining, and artisan food culture. But there was also a contingent that acknowledged the freewheeling nature of Portland, describing chefs as “nonconformist” and noting the city’s “renegade spirit.” Many noted Portland’s culinary intimacy, the way its restaurants felt “personal” and how the city evoked a “deliberately casual, relaxed atmosphere.” Portland’s chefs weren’t just passionate and rigorous; they were playful and at ease. The explanation given by chefs again and again: Lower cost of entry meant it was easier to take risks without losing exorbitant amounts of money.

In the years since, Portland’s restaurants have accrued numerous accolades, but the city’s constant churn of openings has seemingly slowed. When Eater Portland asked readers for the kinds of restaurants they’d like to see open in 2024, pop-up chef and baker Jaclyn Nakashima commented on Instagram, “Support the ones you love that already exist before they all close. PDX only shows up for the new shiny restaurants and this town is saturated.”

But where restaurant openings are less frequent than they once were, one area of Portland’s hospitality culture still seems to be thriving: Some of Portland’s most exciting openings in 2024 have been bars. Esteemed Portland bartenders like Deadshot’s Adam Robinson have opened spots across town, and restaurateurs like Gabbiano’s Blake Foster and David Sigal and G-Love’s Garrett Benedict have expanded with nearby cocktail bars beyond the typical waiting room lounge. New bars have invested in extensive food programs, like Southeast Ankeny’s Moonshot Tavern or the new Bauman’s cider taproom. Although the drinks at these bars are certainly a draw, whether they come in the form of an encyclopedic list of early 2000s cocktails or oolong Old Fashioneds, the food menus at many of them tap into that same relaxed, inventive spirit of an earlier Portland.

When Sigal and Foster opened their exuberantly nostalgic ramen shop, Toyshop, in 2023, they rang every bell they could. They spoke to press and built social media buzz, and the restaurant opened to crowds, even during a snowstorm. Still, the restaurant closed less than a year after serving its first bowl of ramen.

Then in March, Sigal and Foster opened a new bar in the same space, but with a debut so quiet, you may have missed it. They didn’t do a formal “first look” or hype things up on Instagram; in fact, they didn’t announce the bar was even open until a week after they started pouring drinks. That was intentional — Take Two, their new bar, is meant to be a casual watering hole for the neighborhood, not the next big, buzzy spot.

“We want to be better than expected,” Sigal says. “I say this about Gabbiano’s — I don’t want to be the best restaurant in Portland, I want to be your favorite restaurant in Portland. It’s the same here.”

Take Two has an aura of relaxed fun that extends to the food menu. Liz Serrone of Gabbiano’s designed a menu with things like Bolognese-smothered fries, jalapeño popper arancini, and banana pudding tiramisu — an Italian-infused Americana that, while unpretentious, is hard to find elsewhere in town.

The Love Shack, in Slabtown, is similarly joyful. While Benedict’s original restaurant, G-Love, is more rooted in Oregon produce, the Love Shack strays all over the planet, more of the domain of G-Love chef de cuisine Andrew Lee. Rolling out on tableside carts, Lee and Benedict’s dishes include banh mi built on croissants, brioche waffles topped with horseradish creme fraiche and lox, and crab buns with chile crisp. “It’s a bar, not a restaurant, so we don’t want to overcomplicate it,” Benedict told Eater Portland ahead of the bar’s opening.

The relaxed energy of bars also appeals to chefs with storied restaurant careers, who appreciate the mellower pace and approach to service. Such is the case for chef Daniel Green, who, after touring the new Bauman’s cider tasting room in Northeast Portland, on a whim, offered to handle the food program at the taproom. He now forages his own nettles and mushrooms for pickles and salsas that he serves at Bauman’s, and says he appreciates the reduced pressure of working for a cider taproom, where the food isn’t the main focus or source of revenue. Instead, he can, in his words, “under-sell and over-deliver.”

“There’s a shock value, people showing up and expecting something casual — and that’s what they get — but they get a level of service and food that kind of comes out of nowhere,” he says. “You set yourself up for success. There’s this level of expectation you need to hit, and it’s really easy to fall short of that in fine dining.”

Similarly, Kevin Jones worked at restaurants like Yonder and Bar Casa Vale before moving into the kitchen at Moonshot Tavern; while Moonshot looks and feels like a bar, its food menu is as serious as any restaurant’s, with house-made pickles and pasta, elaborate salads made with Oregon produce, and braised pot roast over creamy Ayers Creek grits. “Everyone in our kitchen loves to cook; that’s just who we are as people,” he says. “The fact it’s a bar shouldn’t prevent us from doing that”

And for bar owners, investing in a compelling culinary program can help them access a broader clientele. Vijay Kumar, who owns the cocktail bar Lulu on Southeast Grand, saw this firsthand when he brought in Jarana — a Nikkei pop-up — to cover the bar’s food; instead of just attracting bar-crawlers, visitors came in for dinner, just to try the bar’s ceviches and tiraditos.

The model worked so well that he brought on chef Lexy Foong to prepare food for his new Pearl District bar Silk Road. Foong makes wagyu beef dumplings by hand and fries salt-and-pepper calamari for the bar; for Foong, partnering with Silk Road allowed her to access a new audience, and serve her food in an environment where it’s less commonly seen. “There are so many hole-in-the-wall, mom-and-pop Chinese restaurants — which are great, the food is great,” Foong told Eater reporter Janey Wong in a March interview. “But I really wanted to bring that culture and that food and put it in an upscale, trendy environment.”

Portland bars have always had better food than most bars across the country thanks to the state’s liquor licensing laws, which require businesses with full liquor licenses to serve at least five different meal options whenever the bar is open. As such, some of the city’s finest restaurants are bars: Scotch Lodge has held a spot on Eater Portland’s essential restaurant list for years, and Expatriate appears on the Oregonian’s top 40 restaurants. They’ve also often been the site of noteworthy pop-ups and residencies, from Jerry’s Pizza to Eater Best New Restaurant Astral, located within Duality Brewing. Green took much of his inspiration and guidance from the team at Astral, who recommended he remain patient as people wrapped their minds around the concept. “It takes time to build that sort of reputation in people’s minds, when you’re doing something different,” he says.

Still, it feels as if this year, the glut of exciting new bars is the product of a culinary industry looking for relief from high expectations, which allows them to be a surprise. “The stakes feel lower,” Sigal says. “Last year was a tough year; this one already feels better.”

2024-04-24T15:09:58Z dg43tfdfdgfd