This is where you want to eat. A restaurant that’s friendly and unpretentious, casual but nice enough to make dinner feel a little special. You’d love to walk over, but don’t mind a drive if the streets are familiar and it won’t take forever to find a parking space. You can just show up at the door and know you’ll get a table before too long. Value is important, especially these days, and so is knowing where the food on the plate comes from. You’re willing to try something a little different, but at the same time want the comforting reassurance of the familiar.
That’s Lauro, with one important distinction: the food is exceptional. And that’s why Lauro is Willamette Week’s Restaurant of the Year for 2004.
Lauro
3377 SE Division
Portland, Oregon
503-239-700
reviewed October 2004
A shared foundation - olive oil, garlic, peppers, tomatoes - provides the unifying theme. Cultural differences give a new, for us, twist to the close cousins of old standards. Here’s an example. Instead of Italian-style mussels with marinara, Lauro offers the Portuguese version, steamed with tomatoes, peppers, the garlic sausage called chourico, and smoky pimenton in a cataplana, the copper clamshell cooker used in the Algarve.
Melon and proscuitto, classic and delicious, is evoked by a salad combining the sweetness of honeydew, cantaloupe, and watermelon with the rich and tangy flavors of feta, pine nuts, and olives. Fresh mint adds sparkle, lemon juice an acidic counterpoint, and extra virgin olive oil holds everything together.
Tagines from North Africa feature almond cous cous. Tzatziki, the garlicky yogurt condiment, punctuates Greek lamb kebabs. Old world quince flavors a Spanish sauce for chicken breast stuffed with goat cheese. A pistou-like seafood soup with a red pepper rouille represents southern France, sometimes overlooked in our across-the-pond view of the Mediterranean. Thin, crisp-crusted pizzas and simple, perfectly cooked pastas complete the circle back to Italy. The cheeseburger is, of course, universal.
Machado gives credit for much of the kitchen’s success to his Chef de Cuisine David Anderson. “He was the best cook at South Park,” he says, and Machado pulled in other cooks from his past, like Ignacio Poot, a fixture at the pizza station. If you like to watch the professionals in action, the tall stools at the counter provide a comfortable perch.
Seafood figures prominently in the nightly specials. Halibut cheeks, almost like scallops in their meaty consistency, are served with the Tuscan kale called cavolo nero over penne and spiked with chile oil. Grilled sturgeon comes with white beans and a dollop of salsa verde. Fresh sardines, relatively rare on Portland menus despite an abundant catch from Oregon waters, are butterflied, grilled, and drizzled with piri piri sauce (piri is actually Swahili for chili pepper, an etymological relic of the Portuguese trading empire that stretched from the New World, source of all things capsicum, to Africa).
Even dessert provides a little cross-cultural experience. You might find an Italian zabione with fresh fruit and Spanish marcona almonds in something dense and chocolatey. Pudim flan, Portuguese style custard flavored with Port, offers a satisfying and slightly less sweet alternative.
Lauro, for all its international food, is firmly rooted in the neighborhood, one of Machado’s primary goals. “In our first year, “ he says,” we achieved the most important thing, neighborhood loyalty.” Most nights, he continues, the staff know the majority of the customers.
The inner city stretch of SE Division might seem an unlikely street for a new neighborhood restaurant, especially one more upscale than the half-dozen eateries within a few blocks. Chef and owner David Machado admits it wasn’t his first choice. “I spent a year looking at real estate,” he says, describing a long search down each of the east side’s well-known arterials. “I sort of worked my way south,” he continues, looking along Fremont, Broadway, Belmont, and Hawthorne.
But Machado’s wife Julie, no stranger to the restaurant world (she spent several years working with Jeremiah Tower, the self-proclaimed inventor of California Cuisine), looked at the former plumbing supply store and said, “this is the place.” Transformed by architect Lee Winn, Lauro glows from the street outside, and the high-ceilinged room, with a long open kitchen complete with counter seating, creates a sense of inclusion. Everybody in the place seems to be feeling good and eating well, and you want to be part of it.
Machado came to Portland in 1991 as Executive Chef for Pazzo. He moved up the corporate ladder to become the “opener” for the Kimpton Group’s restaurants in Seattle (Tulio and the Painted Table) and came back to get Red Star off the ground. Recruited by the Heathman group, he opened Hudson’s at the Heathman Lodge in Vancouver, then South Park. When he was ready to take the plunge of ownership, he knew he’d be staying in Portland.
“I loved my neighborhood, the kids’ schools - I wasn’t leaving,” he says. real estate in downtown and the Pearl had gotten too expensive, and he could see that people who lived on the east side, like he did, were ready to support good, independent restaurants. “I felt that people wanted a different relationship with a restaurant,” he says, “They wanted to know the staff and the owners.”
Lauro’s no reservation policy is meant to foster that relationship. It lets the regulars know they can decide to go out, come over to the restaurant, and eventually they’ll get a table. It might mean waiting for 15 minutes or even a half hour, but Machado says his loyal customers think the food and value are worth it.
Daren Hamilton, who owns a share of Lauro, runs the dining room and makes any wait pass by quickly. He worked with Machado at Pazzo and spent time in some of Portland’s best restaurants. His crew of servers are attentive but not fawning, familiar but discreet. They know the food and wine, and while the pommes frites come with a nice, garlicky aioli, your server will offer you ketchup before you can say Heinz.
Hamilton and “Guy du Vin” David Holstrom developed Lauro’s wine list, a recent winner at the Monterey Wine Festival competition for restaurants. For the most part, the wines come from the same olive belt as the food, and they match up nicely. Close to a double handful are offered by the glass, pitcher, or half pitcher, so you can try something different with each course.
Lauro is going to busier than usual for awhile. The folks from the neighborhood probably won’t too happy that word is getting out, and the wait for a table might get a little longer. But that’s not going to change the way things are done. For David Machado, Daren Hamilton, their families and their staff, Lauro is a “quality of life” business, and that means for both themselves and their customers. This is where you want to eat.