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For a city that's bisected by a river and also just a 90-minute drive from the ocean, Portland has a shocking scarcity of fish sandwiches on its restaurant menus. Stop searching, and instead head straight for Flying Fish Company's new outpost on East Burnside Street. The brand is best known as a market supplying home chefs with fresh, high-quality seafood, but the move from a crowded corner of Providore Fine Foods to its own restaurant means there's now room to prepare everything from chowder to poke in the full kitchen. The new location had a short but vigorous run after opening Feb. 10, just a little over a month before Gov. Kate Brown halted all in-person dining to stop the spread of COVID-19. "We came out of the gates, crushed it and just had an awesome five weeks," says Gildersleeve, "busier than any month we ever had at Providore." You may not be able to take a seat at the beautiful rough-edged wood bar for the time being, but customers can pop in to pick up groceries or meals from a slimmed-down online menu—like that exceptional fish sandwich. Inspiration for the hearty stack of steelhead and housemade slaw sprang from a collection of fish shacks on the opposite side of the country. While studying aquaculture at Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in Fort Pierce, Gildersleeve ended up eating his way through the peninsula's seafood shanties and sandwich shops. "I would always get the fish sandwiches," Gildersleeve says, "and they were amazing, so I wanted to bring my own Northwest version to the equation." Here's what goes into it:
ORDER: Flying Fish Company's fish sandwich can be ordered at flyingfishportland.com for in-store or curbside pickup at 3004 E Burnside St. $18