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Portland's Beast Tames Refined Palates

Michael Martin

If you don't consider Portland, Oregon, a fine-dining destination, try making a reservation at one of its hot restaurants.

Two of the city's eateries, Nostrana and Le Pigeon, were nominated for James Beard Foundation Awards this year, the industry's most prestigious honor. Food & Wine Magazine recently named Naomi Pomeroy of Beast one of the best new chefs. I could only get a reservation at one of the restaurants two weeks in advance -- at 10 p.m. on a Thursday.

Communal dining gets a fancy makeover at Beast.

A new breed of Northwestern chefs is turning "you are what you eat" into "you are what you don't eat" by serving sustainably grown food in their Portland restaurants. The shift is evident at Beast, a new hotspot that touts communal tables and prix-fixe meals.

Beast is located on an easy-to-miss sidestreet in Portland's Alberta Arts district. When you look inside its 10-foot glass windows, you'll see two communal tables that each fit 10 to 14 people. There's a food preparation area between the tables, allowing guests to watch as chefs craft their dishes. The chalkboard walls are covered in doodles, including quotes from Miss Piggy, favorite recipes and chef banter.

Pomeroy, a one-time vegetarian, oversees the cooking with her sous-chef, Mika Paredes. They're known for creating menus of French-infused Pacific Northwest cuisine that are filled with local ingredients from Oregon and Washington.

For our first course, the kitchen delivered a slow-roasted tomato soup with a dollop of fresh cream and chunks of hearty bacon. Although I normally pass on pork, the restaurant maintains a no-substitution rule that silences picky eaters.

The second course consisted of a heirloom lettuce salad served with cured meats, a foie gras bonbon and steak tartare toast with quail egg. The dish inspired "oohs" and "ahhs" from my table.

Pastry-wrapped beef tenderloin served as our main course, along with thick asparagus spears and Yukon Gold mashed potatoes. The beef was perfect cooked, ever-so pink in a soft shell that was sweet. We had a choice of dessert or cheese as a fifth course, which I declined.

While guests are seated together, servers treat them as if they're seated alone, offering them wine by the glass or paired with each course. Naturally, diners end up talking to each other even if they didn't arrive together, adding to the restaurant's homey vibe. As diners settled their bills and left, they bid farewell to their former tablemates.