ChefStable Is Reviving John Gorham’s “Tasty” Restaurant Brand in Lake Oswego

The menu will focus on “Tasty classics,” including brunch and dinner items.

(Emily Joan Greene)
By Matthew Singer

When the Toro Bravo restaurant group collapsed this year, amid a combination of chef John Gorham's personal troubles and the financial fallout from state-mandated pandemic closures, it brought an end to several of Portland's most high-profile food destinations—most notably its namesake tapas restaurant on Northeast Russell Street, but also downtown steakhouse Tasty n Alder and Division Street diner Tasty n Daughters.

At least one of them, however, is already getting a revival.

Two former Toro Bravo employees have partnered with Kurt Huffman's omnipresent ChefStable group to resurrect the Tasty brand in Lake Oswego.

Faye Crosswhite, a longtime manager at Tasty n Alder, and Mike Kessler, the chef de cuisine at Toro Bravo test kitchen Plaza del Toro, bought the concept from Gorham, who recently announced he and his wife would be relocating to Central Oregon. Simply called Tasty, the restaurant will open in Mercato Grove, a new commercial development in the Portland suburb, in spring 2021.

A press release states that the menu will focus on "Tasty classics," including brunch and dinner items. Baker Katherine Benvenuti, of Fills Donuts and the soon-to-close Bakery at Bar King, will be involved as well.

It's not the only resurrection job taken on by ChefStable recently: This month, the group also brought back Pok Pok chef Andy Ricker's "Thai izakaya," Ping, as a takeout-only ghost kitchen.

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