No place like RiverPlace
In countless visits to Portland over the years, we’ve come across many outstanding restaurants and hotels. A recent stay proved especially pleasurable, thanks to two new restaurants and a remodeled hotel.
And who would expect a brand-new dining establishment to earn outstanding marks from professional restaurant critics, including the Oregonian’s Restaurant of the Year award for 2004? That’s exactly what clarklewis scored three months after opening in February.
First, though, let’s talk about the RiverPlace Hotel and its Three Degrees Restaurant. The waterfront luxury resort sits at the north end of the RiverPlace neighborhood that stretches out along the Willamette River downtown.
The bustling inner-city experience is but a block away. The RiverPlace neighborhood, though, seems more like vacationland with its more tranquil pace, cafes and restaurants, all with al fresco dining. Kayaks, bicycles and rollerblades can be rented, and the Portland Spirit dinner boat can be boarded nearby.
When Larkspur Hotels acquired RiverPlace Hotel last summer, the California-based company switched its original European-style ambience into a Northwest-lodge look. The $2.3 million hotel project debuted in June.
The lobby gave us a fine first impression, with slate floors, a double stone fireplace (the other side faces the bar) and Northwest-themed art on the mantel and walls. The color schemes, in warm shades of sand, sky blue and copper, kept that Northwest track, as did the modern Craftsman wood detailing.
Since sunshine reigned early on our first evening, we skipped the comfy club chairs in the bar and headed outdoors to the porch, where wooden rockers beckoned with padded seats and views of the river, Tom McCall Waterfront Park and downtown.
People jogging, bicycling and rollerblading flew by on Portland’s Esplanade, a wide walkway that swings around two bridges in a giant oval along the Willamette River. We enjoyed a cool drink here so much, we returned the next evening.
The guest rooms, suites and condominiums sport views of the city, garden courtyard or river. We peeked inside a fireplace suite and the cushy sofa with chaise looked mighty comfy. Our courtyard suite, with sofa, club chair and leather desk chair in the sitting room, worked quite well, though.
My wife especially appreciated the six pillows on the king feather bed, Aveda bath products, plush terry robe and expansive bathroom counter. I favored the Nintendo, HBO and complimentary access to the RiverPlace Athletic Club down the street.
The AAA Four Diamond hotel’s new restaurant, once known as Lucere and now called Three Degrees, cost a cool $1.2 million to revamp. More diners now enjoy river views in the reconfigured and tiered space, and the exposed kitchen boosts the relaxed atmosphere. For an open view of the marina and river, nab one of the many tables on the outdoor terrace.
The night my gourmet cook wife, college daughter and I dined at Three Degrees, the Northwest menu, which changes weekly, met all our desires.
For starters, daughter Kristin oohed and aahed over her jumbo mixed-green salad with locally grown organic greens, citrus coriander vinaigrette and roasted pumpkin seeds — the latter an especially big hit.
Wife Susan’s Dungeness crab gazpacho, with creme fraiche, smoky chile tomato sauce and root vegetable crisps, earned kudos for its flavorful punch. And when I request oysters on the half shell, I don’t expect them to be topped with fennel mignonette and trout caviar, but both worked wonders with my tender Yaquina Bay oysters.
Kristin zeroed in on the one entree with those terrific roasted pumpkin seeds: the gnochette pasta with artichokes, dried tomatoes, grilled scallion, garlic and parmesan. Susan went Northwest with the grilled wild Oregon king salmon with black beluga lentils, basil vinaigrette and roasted beets.
I opted for the grilled Misty Isle sirloin culot steak, with Walla Walla onion jam, grilled torpedo onion, mashed potatoes and smoky demiglace. Notice the two Northwest connections there? Misty Isle Farms is a Washington beef producer, and, of course, there’s Walla Walla.
After we shared the wonderful cheesecake and crème brulee, we sat with expanded waists and marveled at each dish’s colorful and meticulous presentation, range of flavors and precise preparation (the salmon being moist and flaky and the steak the exact “pink” requested). We all agreed this ranked as one of those rare perfect meals.
Then, two nights later, Susan and I feasted on another — and, boy, do I mean feast. First, though, I have to explain clarklewis (yes, the “c” is lowercase, in a trendy, e.e. cummings sort of way).
The owners placed their restaurant in a 1910 warehouse in a bleak industrial neighborhood just across the Willamette from RiverPlace. Trucks and trains rumbled by often. Across the street, a giant “Empire Rubber & Supply” sign covered a brick wall. Even with some boarded-up windows, an architect’s office gives hope to a neighborhood makeover.
On this warm summer night, all of the chic glass garage doors that front lewisclark’s dining room were open. The hard chairs and linen-covered tables sat on a chipped and scarred concrete floor, with ducts running along the ceiling. Railroad spikes driven into a concrete pillar served as a wine rack.
Even at the early hour of 6 o’clock, the place filled up quickly — with Mercedes and BMWs parked along the warehouse dock. Within a half hour, diners of all ages also crowded around the bar, waiting for tables to open. (Get reservations!)
The energy inside — and airliner-decibel noise level — made for an electric atmosphere. The gaggle of cooks, all sporting plain orange T-shirts, worked at a frantic pace in the exposed kitchen. The aromas boosted our appetites. (Once the sun drops down, only votive candles and precious few lamps light the room; diners are handed penlights for ordering.)
The chef’s inventive dishes and the restaurant’s unique ordering options attract the crowds. Those options include requesting any item as a small plate, traditional plate or family-style platter for passing around the table, the latter popular on our night there.
We opted for yet another option, dubbed the chef’s menu, in which chef/co-owner Morgan Brownlow selects and sends out three or four courses for $30. Brownlow eschews recipes or cookbooks and creates his ever-changing menu based on each day’s ingredients and his own creative juices.
On this night, he delivered a spectacular dining experience of one highlight after another. For starters, we gobbled up fried quail with basque paprika and sage; lemon cucumber with fresh tomato, French beans and opal basil; and olive-oil-braised peppers with capers, heirloom lettuce and celery.
Our homemade pasta course consisted of the tagliarini (noodles with large Dungeness crab chunks, garlic, chili and parsley) and the cavatelli (rolled semolina pasta and spicy braised pork ragu). We braced for the wood-fired finale, ours being the halibut with summer squash and tomato prosecco butter and the spit-roasted stuffed beef breast with grilled onions.
We tried to beg off from dessert, but our server enticed us with a list of seven intriguing sweets. (He also recommended a fine and, on this night, popular Italian wine, Gatti Piero’s Verbeia, a full-bodied red that matched well with our meal.) We decided to share the vanilla panna cotta with strawberries and pistachio biscotti. Having left my Spokane buffet pants at home, I was forced to loosen my belt.
Though crowded with diners, the service was swift and attentive, with dishes arriving almost within seconds of us finishing the previous course. The meal here, like at Three Degrees, scored a perfect 10.
As I mentioned, the Portland Oregonian’s restaurant critics picked clarklewis as the city’s top establishment for 2004, with one opining: “Brownlow, 32, has impressive range and depth, and his consistency is rarely out of the strike zone. He draws from Italy’s peasant/rustic belt, building his starkly beautiful, quietly complex dishes on the ‘less is more’ cooking tenets laid out by his former boss, superstar California chef Paul Bertolli.”
Added the Willamette Week newspaper: “The love clarklewis creators clearly feel for their own food has a persuasive power — and a flavor — all its own.”
Both Gourmet magazine and the Wall Street Journal will be citing the restaurant in upcoming editions, co-owner Michael Hebberoy told us, with the latter set to dub clarklewis as one of the top 10 restaurants of the year in the entire country.
For us, the joy of travel is discovering wonderful places. This Portland visit scored big time.