Family Meal
With the communal dining trend on the rise, family meal has taken on a split meaning. There are meals you have with your real family–the family that raised you, fed you, clothed you, tolerated you, screwed you up good and proper and continues to haunt you with at least four phone calls a day updating you on their snap peas and the dog’s bladder control problem and offering unsolicited advice about your hair, wardrobe, career choices and love life; then there are meals you have with your new faux family–the people you’re seated next to at a long, seemingly very wide community table and forced to make awkward eye contact with for several hours or until you drink enough wine to convince yourself that you are the most fascinating of social butterflies. Here are a few places where you can get a dazzling Family Meal or Faux Family Meal.
Abby’s Table
Every Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday evening, Chef Abby Fammartino of Abby’s Table takes a break from crafting her line of gluten, dairy, soy and refined sugar-free sauces and prepares four-course family-style dinners inspired by her international travels and passion for all-natural, organic and allergy-free foods. The menu might include crisp coconut scallion fritters in a drizzle of spicy persimmon dipping sauce, fresh celery tossed with slivers of fennel, Asian pear and Viridian Farms ficoide glacial (ice plant), hunks of creamy roasted black cod in a sake reduction, and forbidden rice pudding. Served at long tables in her inner Southeast kitchen, dinners are BYOB and Abby suggests suitable wine pairings to match her weekly menu.
Beast
Intensely driven, food-obsessed, self-taught chef Naomi Pomeroy has been captivating Portland food lovers for nearly a decade now, first with her Ripe empire (Family Supper, Clarklewis and Gotham Building Tavern), and now with Beast, a most excellent value for your communal dining buck. One of Portland’s hottest dining tickets, Beast has been lauded by the likes of Esquire, Gourmet, Food & Wine Magazine, and the James Beard Foundation. Each course on Naomi’s locally-sourced, lovingly prepared $68 six-course prix fixe menu—which changes every Wednesday—is created in Beast’s intimate open kitchen, mere feet away from the two long wooden tables that comprise the entirety of the diminutive restaurant’s seating.
Clyde Common
This downtown gastropub’s beautiful high-ceilinged dining room’s long wooden communal tables seat somebodies next to nobodies, suits next to hipsters, locals next to hotel guests just passing through town, all eating what Clyde calls simply “domestic and foreign cooking,” dishes like rabbit terrine with pickled beets, tuna salad with piquillo pepper and saffron sauce, or ravioli of sweetbreads, caramelized onion and bacon. Drinks are some of the best in the city, Clyde only employs the crème de la crème of the mixology world, the wine list is practially infallible, and on Sunday nights, you can share a half-price bottle of bubbly with all your tablemates/new best friends. If you are feeling anti-social, by all means request a table upstairs in the loft.
- Location: 1014 SW Stark St. Portland Map it!
- Phone Number: 503.228.3333
- Hours: Mon-Thu 11:30am-12am, Fri 11:30am-2am, Sat 5pm-2am, Sun 5-11pm
din din Supper Club
Chef Courtney Sproule’s fantastic dining adventures warm the belly and soul, as she pairs her unique menus with equally unique wines and venues. A self-taught cook who caters and teaches cooking classes at Robert Reynolds’ Chef Studio, Courtney might start the dinner with sparkling Vouvray and deep-fried mussels on the rooftop of a Southeast gallery, then usher the group to whimsically-decorated communal tables, where plates of grilled oysters and chanterelles served over tender slabs of Yukon Gold potatoes in a pool of rich porcini vermouth sauce magically appear, followed by bowls of clams with fresh capellini, pancetta and tomato sorrel salsa verde. Din din venues vary with the menu, so you may find yourself dining in the beautiful back gardens of Artemesia nursery with movies being projected on the garden walls, or supping next to Chef Robert Reynolds’ French robin’s egg blue stove in the intimate Chefs Studio space.
Feastworks
Cute food-lovin’ couple Ashley Brown Bisagna and Ethan Bisagna know good food–between them, they’ve worked everywhere from Washington’s famed The Herbfarm to Portland heavies Clyde Common, Park Kitchen and Laurelhurst Market. In addition to their Feastworks catering company, which is devoted to “food that is beautifully simple and honest” (they can even hook you up with a whole pig roast), they host their FEAST dinner series–prix fixe multi-course meals that pair the Bisagnas’ cooking with the swillable fruits of a local winery or distiller.
Holocene Market Dinners
This popular East side lounge and dance club is doing some intriguing things in their kitchen, like a Friday Apertivo Happy Hour where they serve up free appetizers and music alongside house cocktails and $5 glasses of cava. Once a month, Chef Jeremy Larter also cooks up hyper-seasonal themed multi-course market dinners, with optional wine and spirit pairings. Guests might be greeted with smoked goose rillettes and chestnut fritters, then gorge on beets with fig vinegar, Südtiroler speck with housemade pickles, pizzoccheri pasta with chanterelles and smoked trout, braised pork and pumpkin polenta, apple strudel with walnut ice cream and an Alpine cheese plate. I know, not exactly what you’re expecting to be served a dance club, right? To find out about dinners, you’ll need to be on Holocene’s mailing list–email dinners@holocene.org.
Le Pigeon
At Le Pigeon, one of Portland’s foremost “communal dining” experiences, you’ll be seated at one of the three long wooden tables that comprise the restaurant’s seating, which puts you in very close quarters with your neighbors, so be sure to bring your Tic Tacs, and maybe a bottle of wine to share. Chef Gabriel Rucker cooks up his own version of French fare both classical and with a twist, turning out dishes like his ultra-satisfying signature Beef Cheek Bourguignon, Poussin with shell beans, corn, and chanterelles, and Squash Lasagna with basil and mozzarella. If communal tables make you claustrophobic, sit up at the “Chef’s Counter,” aka the bar, which puts you so close to the little open kitchen you can almost touch the flock of pigeons tattooed on Gabriel’s forearm, and feel the flame as the Scallops with Radish and Seafood Butter are being seared.
- Location: 738 E. Burnside, Portland Map it!
- Phone Number: 503.546.8796
- Hours: Mon-Sat 5-10pm, Sun 5-9pm
Open Kitchen Series
If you like to talk with your mouth full, investigate this educational and delicious dinner series held in the Abby’s Table kitchen—there is a new dining theme and chef each week, and diners are encouraged to connect with and learn more about the local chef and producers behind their meal. One week you might be dining with a local educator dishing up locally-sourced braised lamb while Fausse Piste Winery’s owner Jesse Skiles pours his ‘09 Viognier and ‘08 and ‘09 Syrahs and talks wine, another week Culinary Artistry sous chef Bree Rostan will show you how to break down a chicken and school you on the best ways to cook its bits and jibblies, then you’ll all wash your hands and enjoy a feast of chicken soup, braised chicken thighs, and seared chicken breasts. Educational and delicious, all in one.
Simpatica Dining Hall
Simpatica Dining Hall is hidden away in the mustard-colored Pine Street Studios building in the semi-industrial wilds of SE Ash Street, where it hosts unforgettable communal dinners that brilliantly showcase Pacific Northwest cuisine every Friday and Saturday evening, much to the delight of those who are able to secure a reservation. The fixed, multi-course menu reads like exactly the sort of gourmet lineup you’d rustle up with all beautiful food you bought at Farmer’s Market–if only you’d gone to culinary school instead of journalism/medical/cosmetology school. The wine list is excellent, and you’ll probably want to share your bottle of Albariño with your fun, friendly table neighbors Will and Martha. And since eating an unforgettable meal with amiable and interesting strangers is communal dining at its best and makes for fast friends, before too long, you’ll know the names of all your neighbors’ grandchildren, and they’ll know exactly how much you weigh, and thanks to Simpatica’s policy of thoroughly explaining each course before you consume it, you’ll both know what a Pocha bean is.
Taste Unique
As a general rule, Italians love food and plenty of company to eat it with, so it’s fitting that Taste Unique Chef Stefania Toscano throws big festive weekly dinner parties at her Southeast kitchen. Dinners are faithful to a theme–a Florentine Dinner might include a history lesson about Caterina dè Medicia’s role in establishing France’s modern food movement, and a recent culinary revisitation of Stefania and her husband/partner Lawrence McCormick’s first trip to Sicily featured tomato and Pecorino-stuffed ‘Nfigghiulata (say that three times fast in your best Italian accent), a traditional caponata, eggplant parmigiana, and pistachio-covered cannoli Siciliani. With prices ranging from $25-$30 and wine offered at $6 a glass, these dinners are a good time and a real steal.
Tastebud
Tastebud Farm’s dining room, on SE Milwaukie near the Aladdin Theatre, is small, stiffly elegant and filled with fresh flowers, sort of like my grandmother’s parlor except without the crimson velvet sofa. To save space, tables are communal but if you’re not a fan of supping with others and the restaurant isn’t full, socialization isn’t mandatory. If the weather is cooperating, request one of the round tables on the pretty garden patio outside—complete with flourishing flora and fauna and a burbling fountain. The simple menu features a few seasonal salads and fresh off the fire specials, but the real stars are the pizzas. Chewy, slightly tangy crust with beautiful bubble blisters and just the right amount of char, you can choose your own adornments or you can order one of the pizzas on the menu, combinations include more traditional arrangements like sausage, fennel, tomato, mozzarella, as well as pizzas that reflect the season, like the summery zucchini, ricotta, parmesan, and arugula pizza.
Toro Bravo
Waiting in line to eat is one of my greatest pet peeves. And since no-reservations Toro Bravo almost always has a line, I have done some very crazy things to get to the door when they open at 5pm, including almost running over my dad. But once I’ve claimed my spot at one of the communal tables and I’m tucking into the succession of Spanish-style small plates, including manchego & paprika fritters and marinated sheep’s cheese with rose petal harissa & mint, or the meatballs with tomato-almond sauce & English peas, it’s all worth it. Sorry Dad. The restaurant itself is small but beautiful, located in a restored historic building, with warm rust-colored walls, soft lighting and eclectic artwork, and polished old wood floors. Whether you opt for a communal or non-communal table (sometimes you don’t really have a choice), a spot at the humming bar, or a chair along the open kitchen where red-shirted Executive Chef John Gorham and team are toiling merrily, you’ll be in the center of a hive of small plates-induced ecstacy.
- Location: 120 NE Russell St. Portland Map it!
- Phone Number: 503.281.4464
- Hours: Sun-Thu 5-10pm, Fri-Sat 5-11pm
trans_Port Social Dining
Underground supper clubs and pop-up restaurants are all the rage, and the chef known as Woggs (just Woggs) and his team–the equally mysterious Ms. Jaffo and The Cap’n–are stepping up to feed Portlanders’ thirst for secretive, exclusive dining. Calling their cuisine “modernist and local ingredient driven,” this threesome’s dinners will be held monthly, in different venues around town, with menus that might feature pickled butternut squash baskets filled with herbs, marrow and honeycomb, Lady apples with chestnut butter, living sprouts planted in bulgur and steamed in mushroom tea, lamb shank braised with persimmon and lemongrass, and yeast-pear clouds with quince and kombucha. If you want to be in the trans_port know, just email transportsocialdining@gmail.com to get on the mailing list.
