THEY come but they dont go.
In the way New York drew artists in the 50s, this city at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers seems to exert a magnetic lure on talented chefs who come from almost anywhere else and decide to stay right here. About the hardest thing to find in Portland these days is a homegrown chef.
Portland may seem an unlikely place for such status, a city destined to play second string on the West Coast to San Francisco and Seattle. But in the last five years or so Portland has grown and evolved.
At first it was a sort of underground stop for food and wine lovers who had heard word of small, fascinating restaurants run by young, talented chefs serving a bounty of local produce. Its underground no more. Portland has emerged from its chrysalis as a full-fledged dining destination.
This is a golden age of dining and drinking in a city that 15 years ago was about as cutting edge as a tomato in January. Every little neighborhood in this city of funky neighborhoods now seems to be exploding with restaurants, food shops and markets, all benefiting from a critical mass of passion, skill and experience, and all constructed according to the gospel of locally grown ingredients.
In close proximity is a cadre of farmers committed to growing environmentally responsible produce with maximum flavor, delivered to restaurants and to the gorgeous farmers markets that dot the city. There are local fisheries and small beef, lamb and pork producers. Not far away is the Hood River Valley, with its myriad fruit growers who supply glistening, fragile berries and stonefruits of every stripe and color.
World-class wine is produced in the Willamette Valley, the center of the Oregon wine industry, just a half hours drive away. Portland has six micro-distilleries making any kind of spirits you can name and, if youd like a chaser, more breweries than any other city on earth. Just as important is a receptive populace, demanding yet eager to be wowed.
Portland also has what anybody in the restaurant business will tell you is most important of all: affordable real estate. Just as young, passionate chefs flocked to the East Village and Brooklyn in the 1990s, chefs have gravitated to Portland because it lets them have a vision and take risks without lining up corporate backers and lawyers.
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