Fire Recovery Slow for Aviary & Barista and More News

Aviary and Barista Coffee reopening still pending after July 4th fire

Where are Aviary and Barista II? They have been closed since a fire destroyed the roof on July 4th.  I’ve been told by several people the repairs haven’t started, as the insurance company and the landlord are arguing over terms. I can understand the reticence of either to settle too easily, however, we are talking the livelihood of quite a few people – not to mention the loss of some damn good food and coffee. I’m told no reopening date is on the horizon.

WSJ – Peruvian to be the next big cuisine

The Wall Street Journal says “The Next Big Thing” will be Peruvian Food”.

Yesterday, a crew of the culinary world’s leading lights, including Denmark’s René Redzepi, France’s Michel Bras and America’s Dan Barber began descending on Lima for a star-studded food festival. This week, Spain’s Ferran Adrià, the unofficial dean of global haute cuisine, will begin making a documentary film about the food scene there. A huge restaurant from the nation’s top celebrity chef will open later this month in Manhattan.

Peruvian cuisine, the result of a nearly 500-year melting pot of Spanish, African, Japanese and Chinese immigration and native Quechua culture, is on the lips of top chefs worldwide. Zagat Survey lists four times more Peruvian restaurants in New York, San Francisco, Miami, Los Angeles, Boston and Philadelphia than it did a decade ago. The cuisine’s key ingredients (like aji amarillo, a yellow chili) are now found at farmers’ markets frequented by chefs, and sales of pisco, Peru’s fiery grape brandy, have doubled in the last five years. Ceviche, the country’s famous cured-seafood salad, abounds on menus, even outside of Peruvian spots: Haute cuisine temples Le Bernardin and Daniel both serve it. Peruvian chefs say they are able to entice investors to finance homages to their national cuisine for the first time.

One look through the window of Andina on, oh, Monday thru Sunday nights will prove the food has been popular here for years. The article makes it sound so exotic; it reminds me of how far ahead of the curve the Portland food scene used to be. However, smaller Peruvian restaurants have never succeeded here. Maybe with a renewed interest spurred by articles like this, they will have a better chance.

Wafu Restaurant Opens

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned Wafu, the restaurant opened a few weeks ago by Trent Pierce, most recently the chef at the short-lived Fin. It is a partnership with the ChefStable group. Their website has a pretty good description: “Paying homage to the mighty Japanese ramen tradition, Wafu (lit. “Japanese style”) is a noodle bar envisioned by lauded chef Trent Pierce. Using both modern and traditional techniques, carefully chosen ingredients are combined to create an assortment of tempting noodle bowls. Small plates that pair fresh meats and seafood with Japanese-inspired flavors round out this innovative menu.” I went to a preview dinner and thought it was pretty good – especially for a brand new restaurant. Wafu will definitely be worth a return visit, even if the name evokes a sneeze. Ah, ah, ah Wafu!!

Vino Paradiso Restaurant Rebrands as Coppia

Speaking of openings, I also dropped in on Coppia Restaurant on opening night. Coppia is the new incarnation of Vino Paradiso in the Gregory building on NW 10th. Chef Aren Steinbrecher is focusing on the traditional cuisine of Piedmont, Italy. This is more than just a name change, but a whole new focus. In a press release, owner Tim says,

“After over six years of business, we felt it was time to freshen things up a bit. Vino Paradiso Wine Bar & Bistro is now, simply, Coppie. The new name reflects our committment to one of our favorite regions in the world for both food and wine, Piedmont, Italy”

This is another case of a restaurant being better than I expected on opening night. It should be noted that I don’t make a habit of dining out so soon after a restaurant opens, but I have a new friend who does. Keeps me busy.

In a recent article discussing the similarities between the Portland and NYC food scene on Grubstreet New York,

Andy Ricker of Pok Pok fame is scouting locations to open a restaurant in NYC. Andy Ricker, the James Beard Award winning chef-owner of Pok Pok, a Thai street food restaurant in Portland, would agree that New York is behind in certain ways. “I don’t know how the numbers add up,” said Ricker, who’s been scouting restaurant spaces for a Pok Pok he hopes to open in New York. “Portland food, since there are so many farms nearby, seems to revolve around these local ingredients that are not that expensive. I don’t think that’s true here.”

…Ricker reflects, “It’s every cook’s dream to open a restaurant, which you can do in Portland … Because you have a little room to breathe; you’re not sweating the commerce thing 24/7.” (Owing to said commerce thing, Ricker has pretty much written off opening a restaurant in Manhattan. “I’m looking around Red Hook pretty aggressively,” he told us recently via e-mail.) And yet, if you do manage to open a restaurant, cooking in Portland “is not that challenging,” Ricker says. Piacentini agrees, “It’s sort of a small city. There’s a lot of Asian, but there’s not much stuff from around the world happening there. And: “There’s certainly a height of cuisine that’s just not reachable [in Portland].

Since this was written, I received a note from Andy Ricker wanting to clarify what he meant. “…..RELATIVELY easy compared to NYC, due to lower rents, lower cost of living (therefore lower wages), ease of getting a liquor license and access to great product at a reasonable price. But I would never say that cooking or opening and running a restaurant is not that hard, in any situation.

Ouch. Emphasis mine.

Finally, the irascible Nick Zukin of PortlandFood.org is opening his own Mexican restaurant. EaterPDX has the details:

Lease details have yet to be hammered out, but a liquor license application confirms that Kenny & Zuke’s co-founder (and food blogger) Nick Zukin is opening a Mexican restaurant, hopefully to occupy the SE Division space that recently housed the Blue Pig Cafe. (The Blue Pig packed up and moved to SE Hawthorne and 20th.) Working title: Mi Mero Mole.

Nick plans to serve “very authentic Mexico City-style street food not available in Portland and rarely available in the United States at all”.