If the sights of window-side rustic, rye-tinted loaves of fresh bread and an illuminated restaurant sign pointing inward doesn’t entice your senses, the smells of smoky wood-fired meat and freshly crafted cocktails will certainly seal the deal. Located in Southeast Portland, this nucleus of sensory is Trifecta, levain savant Ken Forkish’s answer to the demand for more restaurants.
After launching Ken’s Artisan Bakery, Northwest Portland’s destination for daily fresh-baked goods, Forkish followed up the bakery’s success first with Ken’s Artisan Pizza in Northeast and then Trifecta opened its doors in November 2013. Since then, the restaurant and bar has picked up some serious hardware—national write-ups regarding the cocktails and the lauded burger currently seen on the cover of Sip Northwest—along with constructive criticism—earlier menus were faulted for lack of focus and theme. Today, two-and-a-half-years into its routine, Trifecta seems to have found its footing, touting a foundation built on sensory evaluation.
It doesn’t hurt that most of the staff is easy to look at, but many of the visual appeals come from the kitchen: a custom Italian-made wood-fired oven layered in neon flames, plates loaded with smoking comfort cuisine and, of course, fresh-baked Trifecta bread, free of charge. The L-shaped restaurant welcomes guests into its sizeable lobby and inviting bar top, primed with bartenders savvy and shrewd in spirits, beer and wine alike, guiding past the active kitchen and into the dining room of slick red leather booths.
The cocktail menu is another feast for the eyes, leaning heavily on the match of meat with brown liquor in drinks like the Brooklyn (bourbon, dry vermouth, amaro, maraschino liqueur, bitters) and classics like an Old Fashioned, Sazerac and Negroni. Further down the list is where the mixologists—lead by bar manager Colin Carroll—flex their muscles, like in the Clarified Painkiller (a clarified milk punch of tequila, black rum, pineapple, orange juice, lemon juice, coconut water) or the “Wood Fired Cocktail” like the Charred Orange Wood Alaska #1 (gin, Yellow Chartreuse, fino sherry, orange bitters, all infused with charred orange wood). Wines by the glass are offered in a humble selection of imports plus a few local gems, and all available by carafe, while beer is nearly exclusively Northwest.
The eats are more basic, served on a single-page, two-sided sheet with a Southern-inspired slant. Start in the “Snacks” department, with a half dozen Pacific Northwest oysters (whatever variety is fresh), house-made pickles or deviled eggs with a daily changing stuffing. Move to veggies with the meaty fried cauliflower served with smoked farro, pickled sour cherries, radicchio and a rich almond sauce or the wood oven-roasted rapini, tossed like a Caesar salad with the namesake dressing and bread crumbs.
For mains, make room for the confit duck leg with potatoes, mushrooms, grilled spring onion and a rhubarb/ginger compote or the crispy pork shank, served in a bacon broth with radishes. If the sensory overload still has you drooling, order the “Big Ass Steak,” a 16-ounce, 28-dry dry-aged ribeye served with marrow and done right.
All suggestions aside, the star of Forkish’s show is the pimento double cheeseburger, an indulgence for sight, smell and flavor. Positioned between two house-made brioche buns slathered in aioli, two patties are coated in gooey, finger-licking pimento cheese for a gushingly hedonistic burger episode you won’t soon forget.
Pick your poison from the drinks to the meats, Trifecta will sate all senses, and possibly relieve the sense to know pimento is stuck to your face.
