PRESS / REVIEWS
Upping the Dining Ante 2/13/2004 Bill Hicks The Oregonian
Equatorial Plates 1/7/2004 Jim Dixon Willamette Week
Mix Masters: Where Hedonism Meets Serious Craft 4/23/2004 The Oregonian
Top 100 restaurants in Portland, The Oregonian, 4/23/2004
"Chef Desmond Luesley likes big flavors, yet his cooking reveals a surprising delicacy: a fondness for peppers and spices that prickle but don't overpower, and a deft feel for oppositions of flavor and texture."
"Luesely's picked up a lot of tricks in his vagabond career: His resume lists stints with Paul Prudhomme and Le Cirque, an apprenticeship at Maxim's in Paris and three years as Hugh Hefner's private chef."
Top 10 martini bars in Portland, The Oregonian 4/23/2004
"Savor the NoPo renaissance with a splendid Satsuma Mandarin Drop or formidable Chipotle Mary, garnished with a habanero pepper."
Top 100 restaurants in Portland, Willamette Week, 10/13/2004
"It's been a year since Equinox brought its considerable charm to the popping Mississippi Zone, and there's no question now that its draw goes beyond the hip locale. "An unpretentious winner with one of the best patios in town."
Top 10 new restaurants in Portland, City Search, 12/2004
Upping the Dining Ante
02/13/04 from The Oregonian
Bob Hicks
Uh-oh.
The long steep slant of North Cook Street is jammed with cars. Turning off Mississippi onto Cook, you park at the bottom of the hill and trek back up to the shocking-pink house with the charcoal trim. Open the door and a blast of human heat smacks you in the face. A small mob is just inside, a few with drinks in hand, waiting for somebody, anybody, at the few packed tables to pick up and leave.
Fat chance.
"It'll probably be about 45 minutes," the waitress at Lovely Hula Hands, the hottest thing going on one of the city's hottest stretches of do-it-yourself urban revival, tells you apologetically.
And that's on a Wednesday night.
A few blocks north, just around the corner from Mississippi on Shaver, things are a little quieter. But not much. Equinox Restaurant and Lounge, inside a funkily rehabbed space that opens onto a serene courtyard, is dark and industrial and very, very relaxed.
All eyes, at one point or another, swivel to the hanging blackboard that lists a dozen or so specials, things that carry the promise of dexterity, spice, surprise. Equinox may look like a neighborhood bar, you suddenly realize, but it's much more than that.
While you weren't looking, once-decaying North Mississippi Avenue has taken a great leap forward. The strip is jumping with fresh energy, a lot of it sparked by the sort of DIY elbow grease that's also transformed nearby Northeast Alberta Street. The process hasn't been without the tensions of gentrification. But the burst of urban-pioneer creativity is undeniable. And at places like Hula Hands and Equinox, the crowds are showing up to prove it.
A good bit of the Mississippi action's been built around eating places, the kind of gathering spots that spark a sense of community. But Hula Hands and Equinox raise the stakes, elevating their cooking to citywide status and giving the Mississippi revitalization a pair of culinary exclamation points.
More than that, they reflect a kind of handmade restaurant ethic that's taking Portland's east side by storm: casual, quirky, a little sassy, unpretentious, modestly priced but devoted to good (and usually organic or natural) food. It's as if they've taken the starch out of the restaurant game and decided to just have fun.
Fun gives a seductive edge to the quaintly named Lovely Hula Hands (it's the title of a 1940s pop tune). A good restaurant has spirit, and Hula Hands' is set by its young owners, sisters Sarah and Jane Minnick, whose infectious joy lubricates everything in this 32-seat 1910 parlor of a dining room. But chef Jesse Garcia, who's cooked around town at the likes of Fellini, Mint, Delta Cafe and Fernando's Hideaway, makes sure you want to stick around.
A lot of places sparkle on their appetizer lists and bog down on the entrees. Garcia, whose stylish, straight-ahead cooking nods to American Southern, Asian and vegan sensibilities, tips the other way. His openers blow hot and cold, but get to the main course and things start popping.
The first entree I tried here, a simple roasted half-chicken, made me want to stand up and applaud: Here was a bird that actually tasted like something, rich and meaty and juicy and not at all like the flavor-free zone the mass-produced American chicken has become. Garcia buys natural beef and pork and free-range chicken, and you can taste the difference from the tip of your tongue to the depths of your soul.
Whimsy percolates in Garcia's kitchen. What he calls a "stove devil" spicy Thai flatiron steak ("stove devil" is slang for "cook") arrives with lime/chili/fish sauce dip and do-it-yourself wrap makings, including a tiny takeout box of warm sticky rice. Yes, it's good; yes, it's messy; and yes, it's fun.
A mix of mushrooms in pepper/cream sauce lathered over grilled polenta, and a Cuban vegan dish of pumpkin rice, tomato-coconut curry and plantains are equally intoxicating, in the non-alcoholic sense of the word. And with so much lush flavor and nothing except a rib-eye steak over $14, the price is very, very right.
Equinox doesn't have Hula Hands' beguiling sense of place, but the cooking here is very good, and if it sprawls, it backs up its global ambitions with some very good chops. Chef Desmond Luesely's loose theme is food from equatorial regions, though it also wanders easily to cooler latitudes.
Luesely's picked up a lot of tricks in his vagabond career: His resume lists stints with Paul Prudhomme and Le Cirque, an apprenticeship at Maxim's in Paris and three years as Hugh Hefner's private chef.
What he's learned is on the plate: a creative mix of flavors, spicing that prickles but doesn't overpower, a fondness for peppers and a delicacy that makes possible the sweet/tart subtleties of dishes such as his winter pillow of pears, caramelized onions and blue cheese in puff pastry.
Oppositions of flavor and texture play big here: the softness and crunch of butternut squash/black bean/corn salad rolls with a spiky habanero yogurt dip; the dance of warm potatoes and manchego against smooth greens and a light shiitake vinaigrette; good grilled salmon with a salty kick from a prosciutto wrap. And that specials menu just keeps bringing new possibilities.
Neither of these guys is a culinary puritan; in the best sense, they know how to entertain. They like big flavors, and they like to mix things up. A certain irreverence touches both menus: Equinox lists its salads under the laconic heading "weeds," and Hula Hands features a drink called, provocatively, Sex on the Bus.
In case you're wondering, the closest TriMet comes to Mississippi is the No. 4 Fessenden.
EQUATORIAL PLATES
The newest addition to the burgeoning Mississippi Avenue scene, Equinox, is a world and cuisine unto itself.
By Jim Dixon
jdixon (at) realgoodfood.com
Seasonal foods from around the equator provide the theme for Equinox, a new restaurant and lounge in the heart of the North Mississippi Avenue commercial district, the most recent inner-city neighborhood to be rediscovered by Portland's alternative entrepreneurs.
The menu covers a lot of ground, from skewers of chicken flavored with green curry and served with mint chutney to tacos filled with garlic mashed potatoes. This mix-and-match approach carries some risk, but Equinox wisely restrains itself from pushing the fusion envelope. Instead, the kitchen uses the strong flavors of Indian, Southeast Asian, Latin American and even European cuisines to add punch to relatively straightforward cooking.
A surprisingly good Italo-Indian combination of squid ink linguine with tandoori-style shrimp and coconut milk ($9) typifies the approach. It's basically a bowl of good pasta, cooked just right and tossed with the sauced shellfish. The flavors may not be what you'd expect, but they all work together.
The aptly named Horns of Diablo showcase chef Desmond Luesely's fondness for chilies. Roasted red fresco peppers, which look like overgrown jalapeños and vary from mildly spicy to blistering, come stuffed with shiitake mushrooms and potatoes ($5). It's a nice combination, but neither the mild stuffing nor the creamy roasted corn sauce helps if you get one of the hot chilies, so order these only if you can tolerate the heat or like to live dangerously.
A salad of spinach and mixed greens ($7) benefits from the tart-sweet crunch of julienned apples, judiciously applied disks of fresh Mission figs or apricots, and requisite salt from a scattering of peanuts. A clean balsamic vinaigrette, with a bite of lemon acidity to balance the cloying sweetness of the vinegar, connects the disparate ingredients. Even better was the grilled Caesar ($5), an unexpected twist on the ubiquitous salad. The romaine takes a quick trip to the grill and returns slightly charred and wilted, perfect for a dressing that blends the familiar flavor of anchovies with the surprising spike of habanero chili.
While the flavors are drawn from equatorial regions, substance originates closer to the 45th parallel. Equinox uses locally grown organic produce whenever possible, and meat comes from regional suppliers, such as Carlton pork and Painted Hills beef. I had a perfectly cooked pork loin chop topped with a pestolike cilantro and lemon sauce and accompanied by creamy polenta ($10).
That beef from the central Oregon ranchers' cooperative has the potential to make a much better burger than the thin-patty version currently on the weekend lunch menu ($6.50). It's what I call Texas-style, thin and cooked well-done with a crispy, near burnt edge, and it has its followers, loyal if misguided. But since we've got such good local beef, why not make thick burgers, cooked gloriously rare?
Salmon, not exactly equatorial but definitely seasonal, shows up grilled and wrapped in prosciutto in the evening ($12) and as part of the special Equinox Benedict for brunch. Halibut ($12), another northern native, gets a welcome dose of flavor from a smoky Thai-style chile relish.
The menu offers a handful of pasta and rice dishes, including a seasonal shifting housemade ravioli ($8). Vegetarian choices nearly equal those for omnivores, and dessert specials such as fried banana won tons with a thin coconut dipping sauce will quell the sweet tooth.
Equinox sits at the back of one of the former town of Albina's old brick buildings. It's got an owner-built, repurposed feel typical of the area. The courtyard out front becomes part of the dining room in warmer weather when the big roll-up door is open. It's a comfortable spot, with the only drawback an occasional waft of cooking odors from the semi-open kitchen.
The gentrification of Albina is a peculiarly Portland version, with Goodwill-clad, bicycle-mounted young hipsters as the landed gentry instead of the stereotypic polo-shirted, BMW-driving yuppies. The Rebuilding Center anchors the commercial strip, caffeine comes from Fresh Pot rather than Starbucks, and Video Vérité offers a quirky selection of documentaries, art films and other anti-Blockbuster movies on DVD.
Equinox signals that the neighborhood transformation has reached critical mass. It's not the first restaurant on the avenue: Mississippi Pizza Pub, Grandfather's Deli, Soup & Soap's classic Southern soul food (usually, but not always, consumed while utilizing the adjacent laundromat), and the Purple Parlor's vegetarian and vegan fare also feed the urban pioneers. But the eclectic food at Equinox makes the leap to cuisine, and while it may be in a category by itself (call it recycled fusion), it's good enough to draw diners from beyond the immediate neighborhood.
MIX MASTERS: WHERE HEDONISM MEETS SERIOUS CRAFT
The Oregonian
4/23/2004
From sophisticated interpretations of the classics in downtown bars to liquid artwork in urban neighborhood bistros, these are the best of times to be sipping cocktails. Here are 10 gathering places where the architecture of drinking is a serious craft, and the result is pure hedonism.
Saucebox: Portland's renaissance headquarters for the new Cocktail Nation. Saucebox infuses a plethora of seasonal fresh fruits, herbs and spices in vodka, rum and gin. House cordials include fennel, chestnut, hibiscus and peach. Personal favorites are the hijito, a tall, ginger-infused drink with hibiscus syrup and mint leaves, and the Shiso "Best" Drink, muddled with fresh shiso leaves. (214 S.W. Broadway; 503-241-3393)
820: Saucebox alumna Lucy Brennan has created her own one-woman cocktail nation in North Portland, where she runs the restaurant Mint and its next-door lounge, 820. Brennan has moved from infusions toward cocktails with herbs, vegetables and fruit purees. Get acquainted with Mother Earth through Ruby, Brennan's beet-infused vodka. Her sidecar will take you home in style. (820 N. Russell St.; 503-284-5518)
Paragon: A dedicated fruit guy, cocktail raconteur Bob Brunner infuses vodka with raspberry, blackberry, strawberry and blueberry, then builds voluptuous cocktails from them. His Streetcar Infusion of blackberry and raspberry vodka will get you on the bus before you know you're there, and Medicated Magic, with all four, deserves to be on the Oregon Health Plan. Just $7.50 a prescription. (1309 N.W. Hoyt St.; 503-833-5060)
El Gaucho: The place to experience classic Manhattans, Sazeracs and martinis (stirred for 10 seconds) as they were meant to be. Try this upscale steakhouse's variations of the sidecar and French 75, and its delightful Ruby, built with citrus vodka and raspberry liqueur. (319 S.W. Broadway; 503-227-8794)
Paley's Place: The seamless interaction between the kitchen and cozy bar at this bustling bistro is a joyous tribute to hedonism. Suzanne Bozarth has been gracefully integrating seasonal and classic cocktails with Paley's menu for five years. She presides over a nifty old-fashioned and margarita. Her Americano and Pimm's Cup & Saucer are refreshing antidotes to the dog days of summer. (1204 N.W. 21st Ave.; 503-243-2403)
Brazen Bean: With Tom Waits groaning in the background and bartender Phoebe Wilson shaking it in the well, happy hour ($3 cocktails) at the Brazen Bean is as good as it gets. Good bets are the Ima gimlet, the basil-inflected Moksh and the aromatic lavender martini. But be careful getting off the barstool after a couple of heady French 75s. (2075 N.W. Glisan St.; 503-294-0636)
Castagna: The cocktail divas here devise playfully crisp, seasonal drinks that mesh well with the cafe's creative yet simple menu, and the clean, fresh flavors of the more formal adjacent restaurant are reflected in the adventurous cocktails and infused vodkas. Head for the border with Veruca Salt, a blueberry-infused tequila. Or try an Impear, built on ginger-infused vodka and Clear Creek pear brandy. (1752 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd.; 503-231-7373)
Colosso: Sensual and earthy, this gem of a tapas and cocktail bar is tucked into Irvington's Left Bank. Follow the advice of the friendly staff and try their favorites: the invigorating Hijinx & Seananigans or the Zerkpatrick, made with black-pepper-infused tequila, Cointreau and pomegranate juice. (1932 N.E. Broadway; 503-288-3333)
Equinox Restaurant and Lounge: The open kitchen and bar at this delightful North Portland place work closely together -- so closely they offer a seviche cocktail appetizer served in a martini glass. Savor the NoPo renaissance with a splendid Satsuma Mandarin Drop or formidable Chipotle Mary, garnished with a habanero pepper. (830 N. Shaver St.; 503-460-3333)
Bartini: In the beginning was the holy trinity of gin, vermouth and an olive or two. This neat Northwest Portland martini bar serves more than 100 interpretations of the classic cocktail. Try the Sweet Nasturtium, fresh from the garden with a sweet lavender rim and nasturtium petal float. (2108 N.W. Glisan St.; 503-224-7919)
Honorable tip of the martini glass: Andina, Carlyle, East Chinatown Lounge, Higgins, Holden's Bistro, Jake's Famous Crawfish, Lovely Hula Hands, McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurant, Park Kitchen, Squeez.
Top 100 restaurants in Portland, The Oregonian 2004
Top 100 restaurants in Portland, Willamette Week 2004
Top 10 new restaurants in Portland, City Search 2004