All the Food, Drinks, Good Vibes, and Awesome Chefs at Feast Portland 2015
What was it like to eat and drink with some of the country's best chefs at Feast Portland? It was a four-day long affair in the Rose City filled with exquisite dinners, bustling night markets, happening house parties, and more fantastic food than we ever knew could exist in one place all at once. From Aaron Franklin lugging 600 pounds of meat and a giant smoker from Texas to Oregon to chefs downing jungle juice and putting on their game faces for backyard ping pong in the Portland hills, here's how this year's liveliest food and drink festival went down.
DYLAN + JENI1/26Welcome to Portland
There's no better way to ring in the festivities than with the Bon Appétit Hot 10 Dinner, where several generations of Hot 10 chefs came together to cook one awesome multi-course meal for enthusiastic diners at Portland's Kitchen Cru.
DYLAN + JENI2/26Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot (10 Dinner)
It's not a Hot 10 dinner without a killer cocktail hour. Kristen D. Murray of Portland's own MÅURICE laid out a fromage blanc radish pop with chamomile, honey, and cured roe, while Philip Krajeck of Nashville's Rolf & Daughters served up a crispy, crunchy carta di musica with chicken liver, peach, almond, and lemon balm. Joe Kindred of Davidson, North Carolina's Kindred anchored the hour with a lamb tartare featuring celery, capers, and katsuobushi. Oh, and there was rosé, of course.
DYLAN + JENI3/26First Course: Philip Krajeck, Rolf & Daughters
To kick off the dinner, Krajeck (whose restaurant Rolf & Daughters in Nashville earned the no. 3 slot on the BA Hot 10 in 2013) served a light and punchy (but not bracing) first-course of fluke, tomato, cucumber, and konbu.
DYLAN + JENI4/26Second Course: Joe Kindred, Kindred
For the second course, Kindred (chef of the no. 7 restaurant on this year's BA Hot 10) served a plancha seared octopus, almond milk, scuppernong verjus (made from a Portland supergrape) with a green coriander pistou.
DYLAN + JENI5/26Third Course: Aaron Silverman, Rose's Luxury
Silverman, chef of Rose's Luxury in Washington, D.C., our no. 1 best new restaurant in the country in 2014, came out guns a-blazin' with a pickle-brined fried chicken with a honey drizzle and benne seeds.
DYLAN + JENI6/26Give Us All the Fried Chicken and Hot Sauce
No bite of Silverman's perfectly crunchy, juicy, salty, sweet pickle-brined fried chicken was complete without a few drops of the Louisiana-style Crystal Hot Sauce he left out for the table. It's not an exaggeration to say that we requested thirds.
DYLAN + JENI7/26Fourth Course: Abe Conlon & Adrienne Lo, Fat Rice
Fat Rice, the no. 4 best new restaurant on our Hot 10 in 2013, is a go big or go home kind of place. The Macanese-style restaurant delivers on big flavor expertly executed (with a dose of humor and fun). Here, chefs Conlon and Lo dished out porco bafassa, a turmeric braised pork shoulder with potatoes, carrots, chanterelles, and balichão.
DYLAN + JENI8/26Dessert: Kristen D. Murray, MÅURICE
Murray, the brains behind BA's no. 9 best new restaurant in 2014, closed out the meal in true MÅURICE style: a dessert with flavor combinations we would never have thought of but now crave. Here, a black pepper cheesecake with tomato confit and anisette gelato. Wash that down with a Goose Island Pepe Nero beer and call it a night.
DYLAN + JENI9/26Dream Team
"You don't have time to trail and stage once you open a restaurant. With an event like this, we're cooking and sharing these things together, and you get to see their world," said Krajeck after the dinner. "That's what it's all about."
DYLAN + JENI10/26All in the Family
After spending an evening getting acquainted, helping one another prepare and plate dishes (pretty incredible to watch Krajeck assist Conlon and Lo on the main and Kindred assist Murray on dessert), the group came together for a family photo. From left to right: BA's deputy editor Andrew Knowlton, Silverman, Murray, Krajeck, Conlon, Lo, Kindred, and BA's editor in chief Adam Rapoport.
DYLAN + JENI11/26Pork of the Ages
The official Feast Portland afterparty of the night was Pork of the Ages, a meaty event with pork dishes (and nearly a dozen pork heads) as far as the eye could see.
DYLAN + JENI12/26And So it Begins
The next day opened with panels and tastings at the hub of Feast Portland, the demo and grand tasting tents downtown.
DYLAN + JENI13/26Hot Damn, Hot Dog!
Portland's own Olympia Provisions was not messing around with its fully loaded hot dogs. We're gonna need a bigger bun.
DYLAN + JENI14/26File Under: The Right Way to Do Charcuterie
Olympia Provisions is acclaimed for its meat—from pate and liver mousse to bratwurst, kielbasa, and more—for good reason. We piled our plates high with all of the hand-butchered, hand-crafted meat we could.
DYLAN + JENI15/26The Man, The Myth, The Pitmaster
There are four hour waits at Aaron Franklin's Franklin Barbecue in Austin, Texas for good reason. The man knows his meat, and he's smoking the best barbecue in the country. So, when he comes to Feast Portland to serve some brisket, he comes prepared with a colossal smoker he lugged all the way from Texas.
DYLAN + JENI16/26Franklin Barbecue x Stumptown Coffee
Franklin provided the luscious brisket and Portland's own Stumptown Coffee provided, well, coffee, of course—but also a collaborative barbecue sauce for all that meat.
DYLAN + JENI17/26Holy Smokes
There's meat, and then there's Aaron Franklin's meat.
DYLAN + JENI18/26Taking It All In
Attendees at the Franklin Barbecue x Stumptown Coffee Cookout enjoyed down-home country music, loads of sunshine, beer and wine, plus incredible brisket with a 10 minute line, rather than the three to four hours the actual restaurant location is known for.
DYLAN + JENI19/26Brisket Brings People Together
Andy Ricker, of Pok Pok and Whiskey Soda Lounge, and Nong Poonsukwattana of Portland's Khao Man Gai empire, also got in line for Franklin's barbecue at the event. The pull of the brisket is too strong.
DYLAN + JENI20/26Looking Good, Tilikum
Portland's got many bridges, but the Tilikum Bridge is by far the prettiest. Lit up at night, the bridge connects the east and west sides of Portland over the Willamette River. We took in the view from the Feast Night Market.
DYLAN + JENI21/26A Village of Its Own
Welcome to the Night Market, a mini-food festival where nearly two dozen chefs, wineries, breweries, distilleries, and ice creameries set up shop along the Willamette River. We ate corn madeleines with Parmesan and honeycomb at Holdfast, an Asian-style rice krispie treat at Fat Rice, divine lamb pelmeni at Kachka, and the goat tartare from JORY with gusto. (Seriously, give us more of those.)
DYLAN + JENI22/26After the Party, It's the Afterparty
No matter how many high school and college house parties we attended, what we wanted from house parties never lived up to the movies. Until we attended the BA House Party Afterparty at a stunning house up in the Portland hills, that is. We outfitted the house with a giant backyard (with a ping pong table), Madcapra, Eggslut, an awesome DJ, and booze that flowed all night; let's just say we had no plans of going home early.
DYLAN + JENI23/26Jello Shots, 'Jungle Juice,' and Instant Old Fashioneds
Nobody bartends a party like The Commissary bartends a party. The team came equipped with fancy jello shots (made with sasparilla tincture and Jagermeister, of course), their take on 'jungle juice,' margaritas, and bottomless Old Fashioneds.
DYLAN + JENI24/26Ice Luge! (We're Not Kidding.)
No house party is complete without an ice luge. This house party was no exception.
DYLAN + JENI25/26Late Night Eats
Attendees thanked their lucky stars (especially since you could see them all, since it was about 30 minutes outside of downtown Portland) that Sara Kramer and Sarah Hymanson of LA's beloved Madcapra were dishing out hearty late-night schwarma in the backyard.
DYLAN + JENI26/26One for the Road
The front patio was the place to get ice cream, after a few Madcapra and Eggslut sandwiches (and a few drinks). Portland's favorite ice cream company, Salt & Straw, set up shop on the front lawn—to shorter-than-usual lines and customers eager for late-night dessert.
