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And, once outside on the patio, past the throngs of Oregonian employees in T-shirts who seemed to far out-number paying guests, it wasn't too hard to forget about their involvement in the whole thing. We were greeted by an array of delicious appetizers and a large and helpful staff walking around taking drink orders.
I was a bit disconcerted by the affectation of servers wearing work aprons. It felt very Bay Area to me but then again, the owners, Nick and Sandra Arnerich and the head chef, Matthew Sigler, came here from the Bay (came back, if you're Nick who is originally from Portland), so I was willing to go with it, especially since they were bringing me such tasty things.
I opted for a gin drink called Nights in Cabiria or maybe Nights OF Cabiria which is apparently a movie. It was a good start, light and a little spicy and perfectly matched with the sunny, breezy patio. The appetizers were equal to the cocktail, a good mix of crunch crackers, toasted bread and crisp chicharrones plus cheeses, jams, some breaded olives and this insane bruschetta-type thing that involved pork, another berry or possibly cherry jam and greens. It was a real struggle not to fill up on those things and if I have a complaint it's that there were too many and it was too tempting and I wish they had taken them away sooner so I didn't eat so much. But I guess that's a me problem.
I was saved when we were ushered indoors. Our table was the youngest in the place by a good margin and included former WW staffer Ben Waterhouse, who writes for The O now, plus a food blogger and her husband. (None of the others paid for the dinner, which was rumored to have sold poorly. WW did purchase our ticket.)
At this point, Mark Katches, Oregonian Media Group's VP of Content, stepped in to remind us about the Oregonian thing we'd been trying so hard to forget (the "goodie" bags on each chair containing Oregonian-branded pint glasses didn't help). He made a few cringe-inducing quips about the size of the expense reports he signs for (not present) Restaurant Critic Michael Russell and said they usually give the paper's restaurant of the year award to well-established restaurants, but "on occasion we've bestowed the award to a relative newcomer, restaurants that have been as young as a few months old. It's rare to do that, very rare...and Renata is a rare restaurant."
It was a bit he-doth-protest-too-much-y, so it was a relief when he handed it off to Nick Arnerich, who was much more humble, but did note that they were up for the challenge, saying, "We will rise to the occasion."
Wine was poured and finally, food was served. First up was the stone fruit and porcini with whipped lardo and "pinenut crumble":
This was followed by smoked sturgeon, an oddly placed bread course that the food blogger assured me was culturally accurate in Rome, and then the fava bean cappelletti:
It was the moment I bit into the cappelletti that it occurred to me I'd have to divulge my personal bias when writing about this dinner. A tablemate described it as "bright," and it was, at once satisfying and lemony and light and I have to admit, flawless. And I somehow knew the flavor.
Here's the thing: I once lived across the street from a warehouse in San Francisco that slowly turned into a market/deli/sandwich shop called Salumeria. This was my mid/late 20sâa difficult time for anyoneâand I took solace in occasionally maxing out my credit card on complex pastas and jars of pork product from this new, fancy shop. A very kind man was usually behind the counter. He would explain the food to me and I would buy it and then go home and cook myself something transcendent with his food and watch Law & Order: SVU until I fell asleep.
The guy who would explain the jars and the pasta so patiently? Turns out he's the chef at Renata. That's Matthew Sigler.There are tastes you store in your brain and then you forget about them. Renata for me was an explosion of those. From the stone fruit with lardo, a combo that had never occurred to me until I ate it repeatedly on the sidewalk outside of Salumeria, to the rich lamb pasta that brought back heavenly meals I'd made out of their food. And the real, intense moment of remembering something I didn't even realize I'd been missing with that out-of-control cappelletti.
There were things I ate at Renata that I hadn't tasted before that are destined to become favorites too: the light, whipped desserts with a perfect crunch. The pork in pork that melted on my fork. The crispy kale. The battered olives and the bruschetta-type starter.
Out of all the courses only one fell short: The sturgeon was bland-ish and needed salt. Otherwise, from the stellar service to the spicy cocktails and tasty wine to the bread course to the lovely patio and open indoor seating area, this was an excellent meal. (Apparently my opinion showedâjust ask The Oregonian's VP of Content who basically called me fat on Twitter.)
I don't know if Renata should be restaurant of the year. It's probably an unfair title to put on such a new place and it could backfire by giving them too much pressure, too quickly. Maybe it's even unethical. But those things we can blame on The Oregonian. What I do know is that last night Renata cooked an absolutely fantastic meal and that chef Matthew Sigler, who I've inadvertently been following for years, knows how to make eating dinner a sublime experience.
WWeek 2015