LOCATION PROFILE

Simpatica

(503) 235-1600

828 SE Ash St.

www.simpaticacatering.com

Neighborhood: Lower East Burnside

The busy stretch of street between the east end of the Burnside Bridge and the terrifying Burnside Asterisk, where the street intersects lethally with Sandy Boulevard and 12th Avenue, was until not that long ago known primarily for its high concentration of vagrants, day laborers and car dealerships. (read more) These days it’s one of the most vibrant neighborhoods in the city, with a dozen independent fashion boutiques, several popular bars, two cafes, a trio of excellent restaurants, including Le Pigeon (738 E Burnside St., 546-8796, lepigeon.com), and two music venues, the Bossanova Ballroom (722 E Burnside St., 206-7630, eastburnside.com) and the excellent, retro-futurist Doug Fir Lounge (830 E Burnside St., 231-9663, dougfirlounge.com), home to one of the city’s best sound systems. Traces of the old days remain in the United Finance Company’s enormous neon sign, offering loans to the evening barhoppers. Don’t miss the bright red Rocket Building, now home to venerable wine bar Noble Rot (1111 E Burnside St., 233-1999, noblerotpdx.com), and the glassy bside6 building, both of which were built with the street’s characteristic arcaded storefronts—a relic of Burnside’s expansion from four to six lanes, which required landlords to cut several feet out of the first floors of their buildings. —Ben Waterhouse

Also in Lower East Burnside neighborhood:

Simpatica Food
Doug Fir Lounge Live Music
CLOSED Fix Gallery Live Music
Hotel (upstairs Cabaret) Live Music
Rontoms Live Music
Food Fight Live Music
Grass Hut Visual Arts
Destroy Visual Arts
Moxie Visual Arts
Grendel’s Coffee House Words

Featured in Restaurant Guide 2009

Simpatica serves you on its terms. That means you eat what they make at fixed-menu dinners ($35 plus wine and gratuity) on Fridays and Saturdays. And you’d better get a reservation early, because they go fast. But Simpatica can get away with this heavy-handed approach because the food is just that good. And if you really feel stifled, Simpatica offers less planning and more choice at its Sunday brunch, which creatively reinvents classic combinations like chicken and waffles and biscuits and gravy. A recent Friday-night dinner began with a sure-handed take on a Spanish classic: gleaming mussels and chorizo fired in a wood oven—briny, salty, smoky and delicious. A lovely Caesar-like salad followed, combining romaine with artichoke hearts and a “creamy lemon dressing,” its richness well balanced by the citrus. The main course was a combination incapable of failing—steak and bacon. Add local chanterelles and roasted tomatoes to the hanger steak and thick-cut smoky chunks and you get a very quiet dining room, everyone’s focus narrowing to the next bite. Let them tell you what to eat. They’re right.
Order this: Simpatica does the ordering, but it’s in your interest to obey.
Best deal: $35 for four superb courses ain’t bad.
I’ll pass: A chocolate soufflé cake for dessert was solid, but who has room?

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Simpatica

Featured in Restaurant Guide 2009

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