Editor’s note: This week, we continue our countdown of Portland’s best new restaurants of 2023. At No. 4: L’Orange, a wine-focused restaurant marrying modern technique with Old Portland value.
Jeff Vejr isn’t the first Portland restaurateur to promise a “good glass of wine and a meal at a reasonable price.” But he might be the first to land that particular plane since the pandemic.
In a town where a date-night dinner in Portland often reaches $300 after wine and tip (and before babysitter), mains at L’Orange — duck confit with black lentils, smoked sturgeon and root veggies, wine-braised short rib — average right around $26, and are engineered and executed at a level few local restaurants can dream of.
Chef Joel Stocks, who spent time at Michelin-starred restaurants in Chicago and Europe, has assembled an impressive team here at this second-floor perch, and his sunny Mediterranean menu is crafted with both modern technique — including a few subtle nods to “The French Laundry” cookbook — and a dash of food-nerd fun.
Seasonal salads and veggie dishes are just as worthy of your time as the meatier mains, especially the downy soft Parisian gnocchi with roasted squash and mushrooms in a pistachio-ginger sauce, an unadulterated taste of fall. But do watch out for occasional specials such as sausages or rolled pig’s head made using pork from Stocks’ cousins’ farm in Grants Pass.
“We want to bring back that sense of value, that Old Portland feel,” Vejr told us back in June, name-checking Division Street’s old Bar Avignon.
Mission accomplished.
What to know: Before teaming up with Vejr, Stocks and fellow Park Kitchen alum Will Preisch held court at Holdfast Dining, an intimate tasting room attached to Deadshot, the new home of Plumb, a restaurant residency that is also on our best new restaurants list this year. Note: Due to its second-floor location, L’Orange is not ADA accessible.
What to eat: The cheese “rose” shaved into frilly petals using a special device crank behind the bar, the smoked and roasted sturgeon, the juicy L’Orange cake with its cardamom icing and bruléed top.
L’Orange serves dinner Tuesday-Saturday at 2005 S.E. 11th Ave., 503-880-5682, lorangepdx.com.
— Michael Russell; mrussell@oregonian.com