What exactly was it that set us off giggling? Was it the way most of Berlu's chairs are oriented to face chef Vince Nguyen, putting diners side-by-side as if they were each on their own cuddly date? Or was it the big white pillar that Nguyen and sous chef Jorge Rico kept disappearing behind? Actually, it might have been the first course, a rice paper chicharron in a wooden box that instantly called to mind a scene from 2015's "Spy," where Melissa McCarthy mistakes a hand towel for a palate cleanser.
So before I get to why I loved Berlu, why it might matter as much as any other restaurant on this list, and why it’s our 2019 Rising Star, let’s put a fine point on it: This restaurant isn't for everyone. Even at half the price of the chef's tasting menu at Castagna, where Nguyen once worked, the $80 cost before drinks or tip will be an expensive meal for many. When dishes miss, they can miss big. And the experience itself — from the shockingly white walls to the pour-your-own test tube broths to that inadvertent game of chef peek-a-boo — is a little ridiculous, funny in a way I'm not sure the restaurant is fully in on.
But Nguyen’s cooking deserves to be taken seriously.
Many of Berlu’s best dishes look like modern art, or perhaps vintage art deco. Rice vinegar-boiled bone marrow comes under charred lavender and zucchini woven into a half-moon latticework. It’s wildly good. Next, a small disc of grilled leeks and bay shrimp with a snake’s eye depression filled with fig leaf oil comes with a test tube filled with a baby pink rhubarb tea and shrimp broth meant for pouring over the top. I’ve never enjoyed bay shrimp more. Even that wrinkled rice paper was surprising and delicious, fried and lightly coated in canola oil, crispy rice taken to its logical extreme.
Nguyen’s great idea, formerly practiced at his work-in-progress pop-up Jolie Laide, is to treat everyday ingredients (zucchini, bay shrimp, rice) with the same creativity, respect and zeal that luxury-focused destinations give truffles or caviar. Right at the center? An organic chicken from Marion Acres farm in Helvetia broken down and served four ways. It’s these ingredients, the kind that a Michelin inspector might scoff at, that keep Berlu’s prices at $80, a price Nguyen intends to stick close to. (Aside from Langbaan, no Portland tasting menu this accomplished starts below $100.) In a gourmet sandwich town that has long struggled to support fine dining, Berlu might have cracked the code.
Nguyen’s biggest backer is Hat Yai (and PaaDee, and Eem) owner Earl Ninsom, who hosted Jolie Laide on off days at his back-room tasting menu restaurant Langbaan, then helped him build Berlu’s brick-and-mortar home next to Hat Yai’s long-awaited second location. Those last two restaurants sit next to an open courtyard at the heart of a nondescript apartment complex in close-in Southeast Portland. Walking through these unremarkable surroundings to swing open Berlu’s big door and reveal the gauzy white curtains, white walls and white backsplash tile feels a bit like visiting the hippest new bistro hidden in Paris’ 11th. The bathroom, dramatically wallpapered with a repeating pattern of four different David Bowie personae, shows a more playful side of Nguyen’s character.
About an hour into the meal, somewhere between the bone marrow and the bay shrimp, we realized there was another reason we were giggling:
We were having a great time.
Dinner, Thursday-Saturday; 605 S.E. Belmont St.; berlupdx.com
-- Michael Russell