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BY ROGER J. PORTER Southpark Seafood Grill and Wine Bar 901 SW Salmon St., 326-1300 Open daily. Moderate to expensive. Major credit cards accepted. Kids unusual but welcome. Picks: bourride, roasted terra cotta clams, tuna au poivre, terra cotta monkfish, tartufi Nice Touches: wine list arranged from light to full-bodied, seasonal preparations of fish, handsome bar area Salmon made of fabric decorated this place back in the days of B. Moloch, but now the cutesy touches are gone, and real salmon wrapped in grape leaves with pomegranate glaze serves as an emblem of the changes Southpark has accomplished. This seafood grill occupies one of the choicest locations in town--across from the Portland Center for the Performing Arts and the Schnitz, down the Park Blocks from the Art Museum--and it has accordingly come of age as a serious addition to the downtown dining scene. The casually sophisticated aura is apparent at the entrance, where diners are greeted by a gleaming copper-clad bar, cases of glistening seafood and floor-to-ceiling windows that bathe the interior in crisp light punctuated by delicate halogen spots strung on wires. Further down the long room the open kitchen boasts a wood oven, and exposed beams harmonize with wrought-iron railings wrapped around pillars. Toward the back there are large beveled mirrors canted out from the wall, reflecting the restaurant's Mediterranean earth tones. At each table there's a mix of chairs in burgundy, teal and violet. At the rear a second bar, a great curving affair, defines a more intimate space backed by Portuguese cork walls and a kind of gastronomic triptych, a mural depicting cafe society from the '20s. Southpark announces itself as a Mediterranean restaurant, but while dishes from Spain, France, Italy and Portugal show up on the menu, there's a Northwest influence that tends to homogenize the cuisine; we never quite feel as though we're eating in the style of the represented countries. Chef Paul Ornstein's dishes are generally very well conceived and prepared, and some are quite exciting indeed; the ingredients are fresh and the seasonings intelligently applied. Yet there are moments when we inevitably lose a bit of national distinctiveness. There's a clear design of contemporaneity in the dishes, a way of updating traditional recipes; if a bit of the orthodox is lost and there's a slight touch of the corporate, the results--with a few exceptions--are very satisfactory, in some cases wonderful. Seafood reigns here, and if your benchmark is Jake's, where the simplest preparation (grilled with butter) is often the best, you'll appreciate the difference. At Southpark there's an imagination present, a way of surprising us even as the integrity of the fish or seafood is preserved. Among the appetizers, bourride is the standout. Similar to a bouillabaisse, this Mediterranean soup is massively chocked with shellfish in a deeply flavorful stock; finished with saffron and a touch of aïoli, it's a terrific, intensely flavorful opener. Terra cotta bowls, pretty serving vessels that retain heat well, figure in a number of dishes. Turning up in one of these are oven-roasted clams liberally doused with garlic and wine, a dish that manages to be at once rustic and elegant. The most colorful appetizer is a ceviche of rockfish and shrimp, served in a martini glass with endive leaves holding the mound of seafood in place. It's a bejeweled concoction, and the taste is briny and freshly bracing, as it should be, especially good in the dog days of late summer. The aïoli platter, another summertime treat, comprises a sun-splashed melange of roasted vegetables including beets, asparagus, baby carrots, potatoes and tiny artichokes. My only complaint is that the potatoes were drastically undercooked, and the aïoli lacked the pungency that one wants to play against the cool of the vegetables and their crunchy texture. Two entrées are worth return visits. The tuna steak is beautifully undercooked with a tongue-popping surface of crusted pepper. Contrasting with this medley of textures, the red-wine demi-glace lends a light, syrupy smoothness, running juicily into a bed of creamy mashed potatoes; the rare tuna is so meaty you think for a moment you've ordered a filet mignon. Back in the terra cotta, a slab of monkfish bubbles in a rich broth containing olives, mussels and harissa, the fiery Moroccan sauce made from chilies and cumin. The broth itself is so good it encourages you to linger, sopping it up with bread or drinking it straight with either a spoon or, for a sensual treat, the accompanying mussel shells. It's always a pleasure to see monkfish on a local menu; this "poor man's lobster" is firm, chewy and dense and marries beautifully with the zesty stock. The salmon is decent, but for jaded locals the pomegranate-and-sherry glaze is what's really going on. Tiny currants spike the accompanying couscous in this Morrocan-inspired invention. Halibut on spinach, however, is entirely mundane. Worse, risotto fruti di mare is hopeless; the rice had none of the creaminess it ought to have--for that it needs to be piping hot so that the starch remains liquefied and suspended, and it wasn't--and the tomato sauce managed to overwhelm all taste of the shrimp, clams and squid. This dish ought to be radically reconceived or, better yet, scrapped. Desserts are worth saving room for, especially the tartufi, apple-sized truffles laden with grappa and centered with chocolate ice cream and shaved chocolate; there's enough caffeine here for a week. If you want your chocolate in a more traditional form, the soufflé, served with a juicy raspberry sauce, is well-risen and light. The raspberry tart is a fine example of pastry-making. It's a pleasant surprise to see a cheese platter, and Southpark's selection of French and Italian cheeses was decent. However, they are entirely ruined by a silly mistake: The platter is garnished with roasted grapes, a bizarre accompaniment considering that the sticky grape liquid gums one's fingers and runs under the cheeses, spoiling their taste. Modesty and simplicity are called for. Simplicity does prevail in Southpark's wine program, which is among the most interesting in the city, arranged in categories such as "crisp, fresh dry whites," "smooth, medium-bodied whites," "aromatic and medium-dry whites," etc. There are also flights of two-ounce pours. Altogether, the wine choice and counsel are superb. The idea behind Southpark is a reasonable one. A good fish house (or, rather, a restaurant that emphasizes fish) is always welcome. Most of the dishes are prepared thoughtfully, imaginatively and with verve. As is common with new enterprises, a few kinks need to be eliminated, but in the meantime you can have a fine experience here.
originally published September 16, 1998
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