Sophisticated Woman

[October 26th, 2005] When I told a friend I was going to Newberg for dinner, he wondered why. "Portland," he said, "also has an Arby's, a KFC, and a Burger King; why go all that way?" But Newberg now has a splendid new restaurant that stands at the gateway to the Willamette Valley wine country and can hold its own against Portland's finest. The Painted Lady, housed in an 1890s Victorian, is an ideal stop on the way back from a day's vineyard-hopping—or worth the trip in its own right.

With softly flattering votive candles everywhere, the dining room is both sophisticated and cozy. A bonsai sits atop each table, and strains from Gerry Mulligan's sax haunted the room on each visit. When a soul-warming glass of roasted red-pepper soup arrived as the amuse-bouche, we were launched into dining pleasure.

A plate of the most succulent mini-corn muffins I'd ever tasted appeared early one evening: hot from the oven, with an aromatic pungency and moist texture. A creamy, rich cauliflower soup followed, along with a splendidly cooked risotto laced with chanterelles and their woodsy juices.

The Painted Lady has a prix fixe menu at $39 (a six-course grand tasting menu costs $55), an unusual feature that encourages interesting tasting patterns. You get three of the four courses—appetizer; fish and shellfish; meat, poultry or vegetarian; and dessert or cheese. The fish course might be a snapper whose skin has been crisped and cradles plump mussels bathed in a cucumber broth or a couple of briny scallops nestled around a silky flan of corn.

The meat plates shine. Venison, because it is so lean, often lacks tenderness, but the restaurant's beautifully prepared loin of roasted deer is juicy, its gamey flavor complemented with hints of grass and cedar. The meat is served with hearty braised endive, polenta, and a mahogany-hued sauce made from wild huckleberries and an artful demi-glace. No venison more yearned to be highlighted with good pinot noir, and the Lady's wine list of local offerings fills the bill.

Pork from Carlton Farms comes two ways on a plate that resembles the symbol for yin and yang: cheeks of the pig with just a hint of mustard paired with a wedge from the fattier belly glazed with honey and lemon. The pork is delicate and punctuated with a curl of fried pork fat for down-home decadence. The best single item may be sweet-salty quail stuffed with dates and wrapped in pancetta, which marries European sauce expertise to ingredients from farms that sit practically over the next ridge.

Airy cheesecake made from goat cheese, topped with poached pears and bathed in caramel sauce completed our fall menu.

The owners, Oregon native Jessica Bagley and her husband, chef Allen Routt—who share a résumé that skips from the Culinary Institute of America to the Napa Valley—live upstairs, but their decision to do so is based on no mere convenience. Rather, it's a gesture of welcoming dinner guests into their own home. And they'll certainly make you forget about Wendy's, a few short blocks away on Newberg's unholy strip.