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This summer, though, they've picked up not only booze alchemist Chauncey Roach from Ración—whose drinks there had been playful romps at the edge of possibility—but also new head chef Jake Martin of the long-running prix-fixe Portland institution Genoa, which shuttered for the second time this year. Fireside, it would seem, is swinging for the fences.
Those familiar with Martin's cooking at Genoa, Fenouil and the first incarnation of Central in Old Town will find continuity with the new dishes slowly populating the Fireside menu. More than spice, Martin's strength so far has been a mastery of texture and a penchant for throwing salty, savory flavors in stark relief against the brightness of fresh fruit or greens.
The dinner menu's crispy duck leg dish is enough all by itself to place Fireside on a shortlist of Northwest Portland eateries. It's a bit of a Marco Polo routine, a long-treasured Chinese-food pearl that's been run wholesale over to the Continent, with a tender confit interior and a wafer-thin snap on the duck skin; soft, fresh summer peaches sweeten the plate and palate. The greens offer both crispness and spicy counterpoint, welcome acid on the tongue.
The seared albacore, meanwhile, is available in variations on panzanella—cucumber at lunch ($13), tomato at dinner ($23)—and both are lovely circus medleys of light flavor and playful variations in texture: tender, chewy and lightly crisp. The chickpea panissa—available in variations across the lunch, dinner and happy-hour menus—plays with the same soft-inside, crisp-outside contrast as the duck leg, with almost alarming delicacy: The airiness behind the thin crust makes it feel almost like you've violated virginal purity when you chomp down.
No such purity is evident in the dual lamb chop small plate ($13), an aggressively salty-savory affair that runs a little bloody. This menu is never shy with salt, to the degree in the lamb it's like tongue-kissing Lot's wife—which I was weirdly OK with. But the lamb is also paired with an acidic pepperonata garnish and charred eggplant puree that dull rather than accentuate the meat.
But stumbles have been rare among the new items on this summery menu. Although the Fireside's loyalty to grilled-flatbread pizza is tough to fathom, a rich onion marmalade and microgreen topping removed all pretensions to pizza and made it a lovely tear-off hors d'oeuvre plate, which paired beautifully with a light loaf of burratta ($11) garnished with peaches, honey vinaigrette, and the cucumber twist of burnet leaf.
Roach, meanwhile, has augmented co-owner Sue Erickson's already estimable signature Backyard Grillin' mezcal-amaro cocktail with brilliant warm-day companion Heat Index ($9), a pan-oceanic tropical fusion of multiple rums with arak and mint shiso. Erickson has added a crazily fig-forward Scarlet Fig ($9) mashed up with aquavit that first brutally shocks and then comforts, like a pickup artist who's read all the books. Along with St. Jack, this places two of the best new bar-restaurant mash-ups of the year on Northwest 23rd Avenue. The world is ever upside down.
- Order this: Crispy duck leg, seared albacore and a fine cocktail (take your pick).
- Best deal: The lunchtime chickpea sandwich ($11) or seared albacore ($13).
EAT: Fireside, 801 NW 23rd Ave., 477-9505, pdxfireside.com. 11:30 am-10 pm Monday-Thursday, 11:30 am-midnight Friday-Saturday. Happy hour 3-5:30 pm Monday-Friday.
WWeek 2015