NYC to PDX
Empire State of Mind
Portland’s food scene takes Manhattan (and Brooklyn).
Image: Chris Cech
NEW YORK CITY remains the center of the universe—ask anyone (in New York). Lately, though, it can seem that the metropolis’s fabled restaurant scene was spawned not in the Hudson but in the Willamette. Or as one NYC food blog recently pondered: “Is New York About to Become New Portland?”
Overstatement? Yes! But behold: Portland’s culinary players are colonizing Gotham, one farm-to-table entrée at a time.
| Portland | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
CLYDE COMMON 1014 SW Stark St |
THE BEAGLE Avenue A between 10th and 11th Streets Clyde Common owner (and Portland native) Matt Piacentini opened this rustic-chic (“effortlessly cool,” according to New York Magazine) 41-seater in May of last year, with Le Pigeon and Lincoln veteran Garrett Eagleton running the kitchen. |
| 2 |
POK POK 3226 SE Division St |
POK POK WING [MANHATTAN] 137 Rivington St, Lower East Side POK POK NYC [BROOKLYN] Columbia Waterfront, Red Hook Portland Thai explorer Andy Ricker sent New York foodies into a frenzy this fall, announcing both a small-scale Manhattan outlet for Pok Pok’s famed Vietnamese fish-sauce wings and a full-service operation in Brooklyn. |
| 3 |
CASTAGNA 1752 SE Hawthorne Blvd |
ATERA 77 Worth St, Tribeca New York’s more robust upscale market snatched acclaimed, foraging-loving modernist Matt Lightner away from Southeast Portland last year after Food & Wine lauded him. |
| 4 |
STUMPTOWN COFFEE 4525 SE Division St (and everywhere else) |
STUMPTOWN COFFEE [MANHATTAN] 18 W 29th St, Midtown (inside the Ace Hotel) RED HOOK BREW BAR [BROOKLYN] Currently closed for remodeling The coffee mini-giant addicted Manhattanites to its single-origin espresso in 2009. New York has not quite recovered from the resulting crisis of cultural confidence. |
