The Luddites were 19th-century English textile artisans, who violently protested against the machinery introduced during the Industrial Revolution. Chef Jason French pays homage to their mascot, Ned Ludd, for whom the movement was named, and cooks everything from a wood-fired oven. No other source of heat is used; it’s all very Portland. The kitchen is tightly focused on a few items that they – Read more…
$ Moderate
Review: Ox Restaurant
OX restaurant is a temple to “the wood-fired grilling tradition of Argentina, and with it, the culinary heritage of Spain, France and Italy”. Opened in early 2012 by Quiñónez and Greg Denton, Ox has shot to the top of Portland’s “must visit” restaurants, and placed number one on my 2012 Best New Restaurant List. On a – Read more…
Review: Nuestra Cocina
[This review is originally from 2006, but many parts have been rewritten for 2012, including some new dishes, great photos, updated prices, etc. This is the Reader Choice for Best Mexican Restaurant 2012.] There are few places in Portland that really call to me. I can only take so many steaks, so much saucy French – Read more…
Review: Olympic Provisions – Westside
Like impatient readers who sneak a look at the last page of a novel, I have a tendency to scan the dessert selections on a menu before checking out anything else. It’s probably because I want to gage my appetitive capacity to decide if I’ll save room for a sweet, or simply wish to plan – Read more…
Review: Bar Avignon
From the moment you walk into Bar Avignon the atmosphere wraps its arms around you. A long bar stretches the length of the restaurant, an easy place to feel comfortable if you are dining alone. In the front, a small group of tables holds about 20, and a few raised booths make up the back. – Read more…
Review: St. Jack
Liberté, Egalité, Gastromie! The French Revolution has come to town, and the only guillotine in sight is a chef’s cleaver hacking at a pig. Within a month of each other two French bistros have opened in Portland—Little Bird downtown and St. Jack, in the Hosford-Abernethy neighborhood, across the street from Vindaloo. Gabe Rucker’s not so – Read more…
Review: Gilda’s
You hear all the time that one of the lamentable gaps in Portland’s culinary scene is the absence of great Chinese restaurants. Understandably there is little here to compare with the Chinese food palaces of San Francisco or Vancouver, B.C., but sadly we fall down in that department relative to Seattle as well. But a – Read more…
Review: Thistle
I promised myself I wouldn’t allude in this review to Eric Bechard’s incident this spring involving a defiant defense of local animals, a stance provoked by a rival chef who, in his eyes, had heretically championed a Midwest over an Oregon pig. The great porcine passion probably put Bechard’s name on wider public notice than – Read more…