Given its attraction as a place where most visitors spend more time outdoors than in, canoeing down the Deschutes River, climbing Pilot Butte, biking all over the region or just sitting around (legally) smoking dope, Bend is a city where you expect to find taverns, pizzerias, gastropubs, Mexican-American eateries and Thai storefronts, and you will.  But you can also dine extremely well in this out-of-the-way Oregon city within the Cascade Mountain Range. Here are some places I really enjoyed when I was there this spring.

 

CURRENTS

The Riverhouse

3075 US-97 BUS

844-857-6854

   

    Currents has a double meaning: Just outside, beneath the restaurant’s terrace, the Deschutes River rushes by at its own will, while  inside Chef Michael Stanton follows currents in American cuisine with a menu on which even the most expected items, like a hamburger, are given his admirable local touch and spin.

    Stanton, here just a year, is very fortunate in being able to draw on a deep cornucopia of Northwest provender and suppliers: Eberhard’s Dairy, High Desert Produce, Double R Ranch and Snake River Farms; the bread is from Big Ed’s Artisan Bread; the coffee from Stumptown Coffee; the charcuterie from Zoe’s Cured Meats. With such ingredients at hand,  Stanton has to show respect to their producers, so his cooking is a reflection of the best of the Pacific Northwest.

    The vast dining room is spacious, with high ceilings and the kind of timbers you expect in a lodge, with big, roomy booths set along the wall and shadowy light at night. Whenever it’s good weather, the terrace will be packed with people watching the Deschutes run through the property.

    I had lunch and dinner at Currents, and so favorably was I impressed with the former that I wanted to order some of the same dishes at the latter, some on both menus. The array of offerings is impressive, but not unreasonably ambitious. So, the Margherita flatbread with heirloom tomato, fresh mozzarella, parmesan basil pesto ($10) at lunch had all those elements melded into a fine, flakey crust. In a similar way the chorizo flatbread ($11) had the same virtues, with more mozzarella, peppers, parmesan and a drizzle of raw honey.

    Snooty New Yorkers should be impressed by the Reuben sandwich at lunch ($15)—big enough for two people—made with very good, moist corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, Thousand Island dressing on rye, served with excellent fries. But not to be missed is a signature item—a confit turkey wing with a sweet-sour ginger plum sauce ($10); daunting in its size and meatiness, this is the best turn on a county fair-like turkey dish imaginable. That goes for the burger, too, layered with Bibb lettuce, onion, tomato, cheese on a brioche bun with fries ($13). You can also get it with bacon and a fried egg, maybe for breakfast?

    That night at dinner it was all I could do to resist that turkey wing again, but I was very happy with a roasted half chicken ($23) generously sided with bbq baked beans, crispy polenta and baby kale. Oregon albacore tuna ($26) was a treat, with fingerling potatoes, English peas, fava beans and a smart shot of lemon aïoli and olive tapenade.  Even better was stuffed Oregon loin of rabbit ($26) with herbed spaetzle, asparagus, shimeji mushrooms and the reduction of rabbit juices (left). A ribeye from Double R Ranch ($47) was fine, with a potato gratin, broccolini and four-cheese butter peppercorn sauce.  One item that definitely needs a lot more work, or removal from the menu, was a soupy pea risotto with smoked pork belly (23) that was more like a side dish of pea puree.

    The very rich, creamy cheesecake is actually a cheese course and a very fine idea it is (right).

 

Open for breakfast Mon.-Fri.; brunch Sat. & Sun.; dinner nightly.

 

 

 

BOS TAURUS

163 NW Minnesota Avenue

 (541) 241-2735

 

     In Latin, bos is a cow and taurus is a bull, which produces a juveneus—cattle fit for the kind of beef served at this brand new, two-tiered steakhouse in downtown Bend.  But the ancient Romans never had access to the Japanese or Australian wagyu-style meat served here, the former coming from the renowned Miyazaki A5 Prefecture, the latter from Broadleaf Farms in Queensland.

     Regular readers of Virtual Gourmet will be well aware of my suspicions about the enormous amount of Japanese wagyu that  now appears in restaurants throughout the U.S., much of it of questionable quality. But upon seeing a slab of Bos Taurus’s wagyu, I was impressed with the tremendous amount of marbling it had.  At $29 per ounce with a two-ounce minimum, one has to decide if anything on a plate is worth that much money, but if you order an ounce or two out of curiosity, you will taste something out of the ordinary.

     My preference is for USDA Prime grain-fed beef, which Bos  Taurus also offers, from farms in Tolleson, Arizona, and Hotchkiss, Colorado. But much of Bos Taurus’s steaks are grass-fed, which means a tender but less fat-rich animal.  I chose a 14-ounce, 50-day, dry-aged rib-eye that had plenty of flavor and succulence ($55). And Chef George Morris, last in Telluride, certainly knows how to impart a good char, on request, while keeping the interior rare or medium-rare. And his Bos Burger ($20) actually comes as two superlative four-ounce patties, lightly packed, with house-made American cheese, bread-and-butter pickles, lettuce and tomato.

      As a side dish have the crusty patatas bravas potatoes. The pan-fried house-made ricotta gnocchi needed work, emerging as hard

little nubbins in a bland arrabiata sauce ($12).

     It’s a handsome restaurant, owned by a number of investors from 10 Barrel Brewing, and occupies premises where a number of other restaurants failed. With only 41 seats, including a five-table loft, Currents provides both cooking and service that give very personalized attention, although the choice of a bunch of different steak knives with which to cut your meat is more than a little twee. Indeed, I haven’t seen that gimmickry since Alain Ducasse tried it at his namesake defunct NYC restaurant, where it was greeted with more than a few  snickers.

    There are four admirable desserts, including an elaborate buttermilk pie with a crème fraiche semifreddo “and multiple applications of pear, rosemary foam” ($12). I loved the housemade strawberry ice cream made at “the chef’s whim” ($9) and they even serve milk shakes ($10).

    The wine list is well selected, if not very long for a steakhouse, but the Oregon bottlings are particularly well represented.
  
Open for dinner only.

 

     

 

CHOW

1100 NW Newport Avenue

541-728-0256

 

    Most American towns have a place something like CHOW, but few American towns have places that are quite as good as CHOW.

     Frankly, I only had a leisurely breakfast there, but what I ate and drank was top quality, from perfectly cooked eggs and pancakes—either buttermilk or pumpkin and ginger—of just the right thickness to the strong coffee, all served with a congeniality that warms your heart as soon as you sit down.

    The owners, David Youvell and Ryan Sturmer, also run Good Karma Bakery, the Cottonwood Café and Local Slice. CHOW is open only for breakfast and lunch, and you know they make everything from scratch, from biscuits and gravy  to cornmeal crusted tomatoes and granola  Their corned beef hash is braised for 14 hours with caramelized onions and served with two eggs and “house taters.”

        Somehow CHOW avoids being too cute for its own good. It almost seems that the old guy in the front yard with the big dog must have been hired for the job, and of course you can buy CHOW merchandise like mugs and t-shirts.

    But it all seems to be the real McCoy, down to its brightly colored dining rooms, the windows without curtains and the seats with printed covers.  Outside it looks like someone’s summer house, and there are bench tables and umbrellas, and pine trees all around. The "N" in the OPEN sign is off kilter.

    It’s a tough place to leave and an easy place to linger.

Open for breakfast and lunch only.

 

NEW YORK CORNER
By John Mariani

NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR

 

    One of the principal attractions of valleys is that they tend to be restfully quiet, with only the elements of wind and rain to animate the atmosphere. And, aside from the sounds of traffic, the Willamette Valley of Oregon is as rich in rural sights as the valleys of the Loire, Rhine and Douro.

    From Eugene, I-15 winds north, and after you hit Salem the Willamette’s flatlands are bound by vineyards that rise into McMinnville, Yamhill-Carlton, Ribbon Ridge, the Dundee Hills and the Chehalem Mountains. The whole stretch up to Portland is only 150 miles,  a region with a Mediterranean climate rich in indigenous trees and plants—grand firs, incense cypress, red alder and shore pine.  The shrubs have names like snowbrush, oceanspray and hairy manzanita, with wildflowers called showy milkwood, fireweed and Pacific bleeding heart. The air is sweet with all of them, as well as the grapes growing on the vines in spring and summer.

    One of the loveliest places to stay in the Valley is The Allison Inn (left and below), spread over 35 acres in Newberg, nestled into estate vineyards and in full view of the snow-capped mountains. More than 500 works of art dot the landscape, 100 by local artists, and the Inn is known for the excellence of its state-of-the-art spa.  The resort has 77 guest rooms and eight suites, including a penthouse.  The Jory restaurant on premises is very fine and its wine list exemplifies the breadth and depth of the Valley’s viticulture.

       Over dinner there I had a chance to try the wines of  the 14-year-old Brittan Vineyards in the McMinnville AVA  (below) with Robert and Ellen Brittan, who in 2005 took a bold move to improve their vineyards:  “After dropping all of the crop in 2005 to allow the vines to get better  (photo: Andrea Johnson) established, the first two Pinot Noirs from the mature vines on the property came from the 2006 vintage, a total of 720 cases.” They now produce four high quality Pinot Noirs (and a Chardonnay), each with a substantial heft, acid and complexity, but without the overripe fruitiness of Pinots from hotter climates and lesser clones.

    I also had the occasion to visit Domaine Serene (below)  in Dayton, which is duly proud of its magnificent estate center, which now includes a new Clubhouse, where I had one of the finest meals I’ve ever enjoyed on the West Coast.

    So many wineries in the West begin as dreams, many requiring the investment of fortunes in order to make a reasonable return. But the psychic rewards have been many for Minnesotans Grace and Ken Evenstad, who in 1989 invested in a 42-acre hilltop estate in the beautiful Dundee Hills. What they built was at the time a clear departure from the simple farmhouse style of Oregon wineries, for their dream was to create something along the lines and on the scale of the finest and most lavish Napa Valley estates.

    They named the winery after their daughter, Serene, and their first vineyard after their son, Mark Bradford Evenstad, now with six individual vineyard estates, planted exclusively with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay according to their micro-terroirs. In 2001, their five-level, gravity flow Pinot Noir winery was opened, and just this spring they completed a new white winery dedicated to the production of Chardonnay and sparkling wine. (As if that were not enough to accomplish, they also purchased Château de la Crée, a Burgundy wine estate in the Côte d’Or.) 

    The estate’s Clubhouse accepts memberships that guarantee annual access to their finest wines, although the tasting rooms and dining rooms are in fact open to the public. You can book The 45th Parallel Experience within an extraordinary, beautifully lighted wine cave  (right) for up to twelve guests with a menu by Chef Jason Kupper.  The price is $125 for the public and $75 for Club Members and features an amazing four-course meal matched to some of the best wines in Domaine Serene’s portfolio, including from its Burgundy estates.                    Photo: Andy Katz Photography

    Kupper wears his résumé well, with stints at Napa Valley’s Bouchon, Dry Creek Kitchen in Healdsburg, and Charlie Palmer Steakhouse in Las Vegas before opening his own place, Heritage Eats of Napa.  All of that experience goes into menus that reflect great technique, admirable finesse and thorough appreciation of the provender of the region.

    Thus, a first course of grilled Hama Hama oyster with charred ramp butter, pickled kumquat, fava beans and slicked with lardo was accompanied by a 2015 Maison Evenstad Santenay Chardonnay and a 2015 Chardonnay from the Côte Sud vineyard in the Dundee Hills. Next was a roulade of rabbit with golden beet rice balls, fiddlehead ferns, prosciutto cream and stinging nettle oil, with a 2015 Meursault and a 2015 Étoile Vineyard Chardonnay.

  Alaskan halibut was accompanied by shaved radish, peas, white cannellini beans, bacon and Marcona almond crumble, with yuzu gel and Iberian jamon, with a 2015 Beaune  and 2015 Dundee Hills Pinot Noir.  There were, to my mind, too many elements added to the fish—though halibut needs help—but it was a not unexpected pleasure to taste how it all came together with the Pinot Noirs.

    Anderson Ranch lamb with rhubarb, shiitake mushrooms, rainbow Swiss chard with carrot miso butter went very nicely with a 2015 Volnay Prémier Cru Clos des Angles and a 2015 Reserve Pinot Noir Willamette Valley. 

    It must be noted that, by the bottle, these wines poured cost between $75 and $100, so the all-inclusive price of $125 is nothing short of a steal.

    It is also a unique way to appreciate the wines of the Willamette Valley side by side with their counterparts in Burgundy.