Kevin Gibson
Chef Kevin Gibson stands amid steaming pots and sizzling pans at his new restaurant, Davenport.
(Randy L. Rasmussen, The Oregonian)
Let's face it, the elevator pitch is terrible: A Portland restaurant named for a
in Iowa, located in the home of a recent restaurant failure, serving a Western European-focused menu where, for the first two months, the most prominent dishes -- goulash and cabbage rolls -- were decidedly Eastern European.
Lucky for us, the pitch hardly matters.
Here's what does: On a recent evening, walking up the shallow ramp to Davenport's dining room felt a bit like visiting an old friend -- a friend who happens to be a fabulous cook -- the welcoming smell of garlic and braised meat in the air. That night, the summation of our meal, with good food, good wine and avuncular service, was one of my favorites in recent memory.
Davenport opened quietly in November in the former home of June, an intimate space situated near the East Burnside Street corner also home to Luce's rustic Italian, Heart's light-roasted espresso and a pet food store specializing in raw meat (this is Portland, after all). Inside Davenport, chef Kevin Gibson and sommelier Kurt Heilemann brightened the lighting and the atmosphere, but left the dining room decor largely the same.
Davenport
Grade:
A-
Cuisine and scene:
Former Evoe chef Kevin Gibson steps up a weight class with Davenport, a mostly French and northern Italian-focused restaurant -- and delivers.
Recommended:
Oysters, hazelnut-topped beets, grilled cuttlefish, scallops, duck breast, cabbage rolls (when available), goulash with noodles, semifreddo.
Vegetarian friendly?
Potato-leek soup, endive and radicchio salads, fried ravioli.
Sound level:
Restrained.
Beverages:
Cocktails, beer and especially wine.
Price range:
About $9 to $18 (menu changes daily).
Extras:
No reservations, major credit cards, street parking, handicapped access.
Serving:
Dinner, Tuesday to Saturday
Details:
2215 E. Burnside St., 503-236-8747,
The main difference, then, is Gibson himself, standing next to sous chef Garrett Simpson amid steaming pots and sizzling pans in Davenport's open kitchen, scanning the room like a benevolent foreman. If you know Gibson from
, the cramped chef's counter attached to Southeast Hawthorne's Pastaworks, or, further back, from his time at Castagna, you know the seeming simplicity of his food hides a surprising complexity. Familiar, comforting dishes often yield unexpected surprises -- seared duck breast rubbed with baking spices, cabbage rolls with nutty roasted skins, grilled radicchio salad with the intense flavor of char.
Davenport's goulash.
You'll regret not ordering the paprika-spiked Hungarian goulash, so let's mention it first: hillocks of savory, slow-braised pork shoulder cradling a dollop of sour cream, with sweet, whole cipollini onions and short, buttery squiggles of noodle -- our server described them as "spaetzle-like;" she wasn't wrong -- on the side. Start with a few Sea Cow oysters, then add either the delicately seared scallops with vibrant kumquat and fennel or the cuttlefish, sliced and grilled then stacked like Lincoln logs next to a spoonful of Gibson's chimichurri-esque salbixtada, and you have a near-perfect Davenport meal.
Larger plates meant for devouring
Some Portland restaurants focus so intently on the small plates, the entrees end up a chore. Not so at Davenport, where you can make a fine meal out of the larger options near the bottom of the one-page menu. There's that duck breast, rubbed with clove and star anise, seared to a deep crimson and laid next to a scattering of crisp, nutty Brussels sprouts and dried cranberries. Recently, pungent lamb arrived in a white ceramic dish with white beans, toasted croutons and a sharp flavor pang I took for raw garlic. The cabbage rolls, should they return, are not to be missed, with their pork, apple and chestnut wrapped in a skin of roasted cabbage, not to mention the side of rich, fluffy mashed potatoes.
Dessert is mostly limited to ice cream -- small balls of cara cara sorbet or coffee with cocoa nibs -- though an Italian semifreddo showed up last week, served as a cool slab with a few lovely dried apricots revived in cardamom syrup. Bucking the Portland restaurant trend toward third-wave coffee service, Davenport serves none.
Cocktails, like a house Negroni made with Boodles, are sturdy, if unrevolutionary. Davenport's focus is wine, with a list more than 130 bottles long, mostly approachable and food-friendly, from $27 to $247. Order by the glass or ask Heilemann, who you might remember as the friendly employee at Vinopolis, or perhaps for his year spent managing Clarklewis, for a recommendation. He won't disappoint.
The potato leek soup at chef Kevin Gibson's new restaurant, Davenport.
Davenport isn't perfect. Near the end of an early review meal, we asked about a missing dish and were told it was on its way, only to wait a further 45 minutes for its arrival (we guessed it had been snuck quietly into the back of the kitchen's queue). Since then, service problems have cleared up. And not all dishes reach the high marks of those mentioned above. Recently, the soft, golden-crusted fluke came perched atop cous cous that was too watery, while potato fritters were too close to raw at the center. Design-wise, the cost benefits of leaving June intact are obvious, though if ever a restaurant demanded a chef's counter, this is it.
But on its best nights, and with its best dishes, Davenport delivers a casual, welcoming experience that's easy to love and hard to match. In a way, the restaurant is reminiscent of Portland itself, emphasizing the good over the flashy, the slow and considered over the quick and sloppy, recalling the reason many of us moved here -- or never left -- in the first place.
-- Michael Russell