Restaurant: Sel Gris, Portland, OR

The Portland restaurant scene seems to be at a high point right now. Well established chef’s like Vitaly Paley at Paley’s Place and Greg Higgins at his eponymous restaurant are as consistent and creative as ever and newcomers to the scene like Le Pigeon’s Gabriel Rucker and Andy Ricker at Pok Pok are garnering acclaim from beyond the northwest. Eric Asimov from the New York Times claims that Portland is experience a “Golden Age of Eating and Drinking.” I find it hard to disagree with him.

Case in point: I finally had a chance to dine at Sel Gris, the latest of Portland’s exciting and innovative restaurants. Chef Daniel Mondok is producing excellent food with an unsurpassed attention to detail. Everything is delicious, but what sets Sel Gris apart in my mind is the artistry with which food is assembled. Every dish comes off the line looking like a work of art.

On Friday we ate at Sel Gris for my wife Sydney’s birthday . At the chef’s counter, we had the opportunity to see the precision of the kitchen operations. The space is tight and so each person has to stick pretty close to his or her station, but everything was perfectly planned, or at least appeared so. A few highlights:

Regrettably, I did not have a camera with me, so I wasn’t able to capture the beauty of the Calamari Frito Misto, a simple but visually gorgeous dish with delicately fried pieces of squid highlighted by the greens and yellows of green beans and preserved lemons. Similarly the Foie Gras “Two Ways” showed off Mondok’s culinary and visual artistry: The salt-cured Au torchon with sweet candied ginger and the lovely pan-roasted with a delicate salad of slightly-bitter greens.

For entree, I had the salmon, something I rarely do because, frankly, I tend not to find too many preparations for it that I like more than my own simple applewood grilled. A delicately butter-poached prawn, foie-gras melted leaks and a bed of perfectly cooked risotto complimented the firmly cooked, almost meaty, salmon. Sydney’s grilled Escolar with lemongrass coconut broth was also lovely.

We allowed Mary, our server/bartender and the Sel Gris winebuyer to pair each dish, which she did well. The highlights were the 1996 Kristoffel Riesling which she matched with the Escolar and a sweet Moscat (which unfortunately I didn’t get producer or vintage) which paired perfectly with the salt-cured foie gras and the sweet ginger on top of it.

The desserts, an apricot bread pudding and coconut cream tart, were also excellent, although I must admit that I was getting pretty full by this time. Next time, I would forgo dessert or else split one dessert and one appetizer; servings are substantial and much of the food is very rich.

Finally a word on atmosphere: the space is certainly impressive, particularly the open kitchen and glowing glass bar. However, the feel is much different than many of Portland’s best restaurants. Very clean, almost slick, the interior feels like restaurants and bars I have been to in larger cities. It doesn’t have the homey, comfortable feel of Le Pigeon or the cozy bistro feel of Higgins. This place is, for lack of better terms, urban and contemporary. This is not a complaint–I rather liked it–but it is a little more formal than the Portland norm.

In short: very impressive. Add Sel Gris to your list of restaurants-not-to-miss; my list is pretty long at this point, especially since I want to go back to so many of them again, and again and again…

- Daniel