Since 2003, Portland-based farm-to-table restaurant Park Kitchen has been one of the best places to get a drink and catch summer breezes and children’s laughter floating in off the aptly named Park Blocks. But as the days shorten and get colder and rainier, chef David Sapp and owner Scott Dolich have revamped and expanded their happy hour offerings to showcase their new fall menu.
The idea, Sapp explained when we visited on a chilly Wednesday night, was to make it possible for guests to be able to experience the best that the restaurant had to offer, at an affordable price. Long-time favorites and new inventions, made with fresh, local ingredients and inspired by cuisine from all over the world, mingled as we tasted 13 — 13! — of Park Kitchen’s happy hour menu items, accompanied by their house-made sparkling tonic water.
It would be unthinkable to eliminate long-time happy hour favorites, like the chickpea fries with roasted squash ketchup. Some people come to Park Kitchen just for the fries, with their irresistibly crisp outsides, concealing a moist, fluffy interior; or for the fresh bread from Ken’s Artisan Bakery, escorted by soft ricotta and Bee Local honey. Another veteran favorite is the salt cod fritters, a recipe reminiscent of classic Spanish croquetas de bacalao — except the accompaniments here are Japanese-influenced, topped with wispy bonito flakes in a dashi broth.
Some of our favorite newcomers were the beet chicharrones, light and crunchy strips of fried beets topped with kombu and salmon and golden beet tartare. Sapp explained that they originally used golden beets for the chicharrones, but encountered too many vegetarians who thought they were being served real pork. I also enjoyed the flank steak salad, made with steak from Carman Ranch in Wallowa, Oregon, and served with blue cheese and sherried onions, over greens; the striking “Jewish deli salad,” an iconic, yet somehow entirely unexpected salad of beets, lamb pastrami, pumpernickel croutons and sour cream; and the Kiyokawa pear salad, spiced with cumin and coriander and served with crispy papadums.
Park Kitchen recently adopted a new staffing and compensation model that they refer to as One House. All the staff is trained to rotate both as cooks and servers, which means that the wait staff will has a first-hand familiarity with the dishes they will be serving customers and all staff members have a full-time work schedule, complete with benefits. As of July 1, the restaurant eliminated tipping and increased menu prices to compensate the staff fairly.
Dolich and Sapp report that they’ve received very few complaints from the new gratuity-free model. But for those who might find an 18 percent price increase to push Park Kitchen out of their price range, the new, affordable and wide-ranging happy hour menu serves as the ideal way to sample what the restaurant has to offer without breaking the bank. And later on, you may find that the chickpea fries and flank steak salad — and much, much more — are worth the higher prices.
