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Bar Casa Vale Still Makes Some of the Finest Cocktails in Town

In the year since WW named Bar Casa Vale 2017 Bar of the Year, the place has gone through more changes than Trump’s cabinet.

(Sam Gehrke)
By Matthew Korfhage

215 SE 9th Ave. (entrance on Pine Street), 503-477-9081, barcasavale.com. 5 pm-midnight Monday-Thursday, 4 pm-midnight Friday, 10 am-midnight Saturday, 10 am-10 pm Sunday. Happy hour open-6 pm weekdays, 3-6 pm weekends: food specials.

Established: October 2016

In the year since WW named Bar Casa Vale 2017 Bar of the Year, the place has gone through more changes than Trump's cabinet. Former St. Jack sous chef Jacob Harth took over the kitchen with paella, excellent short ribs and prix-fixe feasts. The heat-lamped, covered patio is now in full swing. And most important, this cocktail bar with serious eats—almost invisible behind its parking lot—has been discovered by many more than the service-industry vets who first made it a destination. Despite these changes, its backbone remains some of the finest cocktails in town, including a caramelized rum and sherry PX old-fashioned ($10) and the city's best daiquiri ($11), made with two different rums, including House Spirits' new Guatamala-born Magdalena. In both its bright fruit and aching depths, it makes Hemingway seem like an amateur.

(Thomas Teal)

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