I have long missed ClarkLewis. Yes I know the restaurant still exists as a name, a building and a place to consume food but the spirit of the place has been gutted. A recent visit there left me longing for the wild and crazy days of Michael, Naomi and Morgan before the meltdown. It’s now part of Bruce Carey’s empire and if you click that link you’ll discover that he said he was going to keep the CL brand intact, keep Naomi’s Supper alive, etc, etc, but no he didn’t. Chowhound’s daughter sums the place up best – “The new owners run two bar/restaurants in Portland that cater to, as my daughter puts it, “chads.” Guys in polo shirts and khakis who spend a lot on vodka and think fine dining is yelling your head off when you are having a good time.”. Indeed, unfortunately.
Anyway, Naomi Pomeroy appears to have gone back to her creative cooking roots and has launched Beast. Here’s what she has to say about it – “What is BEAST??? An adventurous eaters paradise. A restaurant with a European edge- with a nod to the French, and roots in the local farm scene. Each day Chef Naomi Pomeroy along with her Sous Chef Mika Paredes, develop menus based on what sounds great, right and true for One Day in time.” Wish them luck.
Related Posts: Goodbye to the Ripe Empire, and just yesterday the New York Times dropped a post about Portland, The Golden Age of Dining and Drinking.
Dave, let us know more about your experience at BEAST,when you go of course. In reference to the chowhound blurb I find it interesting how snotty most restaurants can be here in Portland and how the food can be a little substandard from what these places claim. Its unfortunate that some great restaurants get overcome by obnoxious people that are purely there to be seen and they eventually ruin it for everyone else, kind of reminds me why I left California. Its exciting to see Naomi embrace the local farm scene. I myself once aspired to be a chef, and realized that you need to be around the right people to keep that dream alive, if not you become trapped in a world made up of people that hate there lives and are only in the business because they dropped out of school or had and alcohol or drug problem…maybe I should not have started out at Sizzler…
September 30th, 2007 at 11:18 amOff topic sidenote: “Chads” are also known as “bros” which reminds me of a friend’s old blog called BroSpotting, where you can submit your sitings of various bros (chads): http://brospotting.blogspot.com/
October 1st, 2007 at 1:36 pmI also thought she meant Chavs…that’s the UK term for guys wandering around wearing Burberry..
October 1st, 2007 at 4:42 pmUm…why is brospotting.blogspot. AWESOME not still around? I would check it every day right after – no before – no after icanhascheezburger.
I am not kidding.
October 1st, 2007 at 6:43 pmAhh…I agree. It was rad. I think he got too busy to maintain it. If you’d like to run the site, I’d be more than happy to ask him for control of the blog so I’ll have more bro news to read again! Unfortunately, he let the brospotting.com domain expire. Maybe it can be repurchased?
October 2nd, 2007 at 10:57 am