These Portland restaurants reinvented themselves to survive coronavirus pandemic

Restaurants adapt

You can get a mean chip butty, or French fry sandwich, at Oui Chippy, a fish and chip pop-up for the coronavirus era from the team at craft cocktail bar Scotch Lodge.Jordan Chesbrough

The three words on the lips of seemingly every Portland restaurant owner these days?

“Adapt or die.”

In the weeks after states ordered dining rooms closed to slow the spread of the new coronavirus, restaurants across the country have done exactly that, shifting their focus to takeout and delivery. In Portland, top restaurants such as Bullard, Coquine, Eem, Nodoguro and Renata figured out how to put their time-intensive dinners into boxes for pickup, some including hand-written reheating instructions. The highly anticipated Bar King, which opened just five days before the shutdown, packaged up former Momofuku Las Vegas chef Shaun King’s dinners as well as brunch boxes filled with pastries from the attached bakery that Katherine Benvenuti had yet to open.

Popular Italian restaurant Ava Gene’s rolled out a sneak preview of Cicoria, the Midwestern tavern-style pizzeria previously slated for late spring in the former bakery next door. Former “Top Chef” contestant BJ Smith put his elevated Polish restaurant on pause, relaunching his shuttered barbecue spot, Smokehouse Tavern, in its place. “Appointment-only” Japanese restaurant Nodoguro began selling bento boxes. High-end sushi counter Nimblefish added chirashi sushi and other bowls to-go. And pioneering downtown Portland restaurant Higgins will open a food cart.

Meanwhile, some restaurants have reimagined themselves completely, rolling out new concepts within their existing spaces. For Portland’s hungry masses, that means a chance to grab chile-jam-topped burgers from a hot new Indonesian restaurant, pick up crispy fish and chips from one of the city’s best cocktail bars, or pre-order lasagna and other homey Italian delights from a chef better known for a beloved burger cart.

Here are five Portland restaurants that have reinvented themselves during the COVID-19 crisis.

Restaurants adapt to survive

Chef owner Gabriel Pascuzzi at Stacked Sandwich Shop in 2017.Stephanie Yao Long/Staff/File

Feel Good

Few sandwiches turned more heads in the back half of the 2010s than the oxtail French dip at Stacked, part of a meticulously crafted menu from Portland chef Gabriel Pascuzzi that you would think would translate well to takeout. But with meat shortages raising prices sky high, running a sandwich shop during the coronavirus crisis just didn’t pencil out. And so Pascuzzi pivoted, turning the Southeast Portland shop into the first (temporary) location of the vegan grain bowl concept he was already dreaming up before the shutdown. Feel Good, which is operating out of Stacked’s Southeast Portland space, serves healthful bowls ($11) topped with a double rainbow’s worth of fruits and vegetables. The Painted Hills bowl features charred broccoli, sweet potato, pineapple, avocado and more over a choice of grains including red quinoa and bulgur in a jalapeño-cilantro vinaigrette, with protein add-ons available for a few dollars more. If this trial period goes well, expect Feel Good to stick around. Pascuzzi currently has his eyes on a micro restaurant space not far from Stacked.

Available for: Takeout and delivery (through Caviar)

1643 S.E. Third Ave., 971-279-2731, feelgoodpdx.com

Restaurants adapt to survive

A trio of falafel balls from Mama Sesame, a new vegan falafel restaurant from the restaurant group behind Toro Bravo and Shalom Y'all.Courtesy of Mama Sesame/Trent Finlay

Mama Sesame

Perhaps, like me, you’ve been on the lookout for a new favorite falafel spot ever since ChickPeaDX closed its doors. Mama Sesame, the latest concept from serial restaurateurs John and Renee Gorham, is like a little sister to executive chef Kasey Mills’ Israeli-inspired Shalom Y’all, with vegan falafel bowls ($14, worth it) out of the under-utilized space once home to the Woodsman Market. Those falafel, which come in shades of green (herbs), yellow (turmeric) or red (harissa), arrive on beds of greens or cardamom rice (or, in a recent case, a tabbouleh substitution), with a choice of sauces including creamy tahini, tangy mango amba or a surprisingly refreshing zhug. Don’t sleep on the sides, particularly the halva-sprinkled banana shakes ($7) and the little bags of fried yams ($6), supremely tender in their salty jackets of crispy skin.

Available for: Takeout and delivery (through Caviar)

4529 S.E. Division St., 503-946-6262, mamasesamepdx.com

Portland restaurants adapt

Chef and co-owner Thomas Pisha-Duffly prepares a roti during Thursday, Aug. 15, 2019, dinner service at Gado Gado.Dave Killen/Staff/File

Oma’s Takeaway

If you’ve eaten at Gado Gado, the modern Chinese-Indonesian restaurant in Northeast Portland’s Hollywood District, you might have noticed a dish or two sporting the “Oma” moniker — Oma’s aromatic rice, Oma’s beef rendang. Those dishes typically came straight from the source: the recipe box of chef Thomas Pisha-Duffly’s 93-year-old grandmother, who was born in Indonesia and lived in Singapore, Malaysia and Holland before emigrating to the United States, and who passed away in California in May from complications due to COVID-19. Before she died, Pisha-Duffly and wife Mariah had reimagined their restaurant in her honor, launching the takeout-focused Oma’s Takeaway, an “Asian stoner food” pop-up serving everything from spicy mayo-drenched popcorn shrimp to blood sausage dan dan noodles to the occasional juicy burgers loaded with chile jam — whatever sparks the kitchen’s imagination that week.

Available for: Takeout and delivery (via Caviar)

1801 N.E. Cesar E. Chavez Blvd., 503-206-8778, gadogadopdx.com

Restaurants adapt to survive

Oui Chippy is a fish and chip pop-up for the coronavirus era from the team at craft cocktail bar Scotch Lodge.Jordan Chesbrough

Oui Chippy

One thing you don’t think of when opening a subterranean dream bar with decor partly inspired by Jules Vernes’ “10,000 Leagues Under the Sea” and a library of rare and delectable Scotch? What do you do if no one can come, and the state won’t let you sell takeout cocktails. For Tommy Klus, the coronavirus-enforced closure — and Oregon’s continued resistance to allowing mixed drinks to-go, as most American states have done — has meant dipping into a restaurant concept he’s toyed with idly for years. Visit Scotch Lodge today and you’ll find a large blue-and-white banner for Oui Chippy, a new pop-up inspired by British fish and chip shops, only here with elegant salads, delicately battered cod and the French fry-stuffed sandwiches known as chip butties.

Available for: Takeout only

215 S.E. Ninth Ave. #102, 503-208-2039, ouichippy.com

Burger Stevens at Dig A Pony

You can now get Italian American takeout from the window at Dig A Pony in Southeast Portland.Dave Killen /Staff/File

Stevens Italiano

In April, the chef behind one of Portland’s best burgers became one of the first local restaurants to shift concepts. That’s when Don Salamone turned his Burger Stevens window at Dig A Pony into Stevens Italiano, a new restaurant devoted to chicken cacciatore, beef lasagna and other comfort food dishes nodding to Salamone’s Sicilian roots. Ordering requires a little planning ahead. Visit the Stevens Italiano website, click on “Next Week’s Menu” (This Week’s might already be gone) then scroll down to find a family meal with eggplant Parm, salad, garlic bread and rigatoni with “all day” sauce ($20 per person) plus an optional tiramisu add-on. And keep your eye out for the next Burger Day, when Burger Stevens comes out of hibernation. The last one, on May 8, sold out quickly.

Available for: Takeout only

736 S.E. Grand Ave., 503-801-8017, stevensitaliano.com

Michael Russell, mrussell@oregonian.com, @tdmrussell

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