And get there early - on a recent visit, the narrow, dimly lit dining room was already full by 4:30 p.m. Order the wings the bossam, a sliced pork belly platter with pungent sauces and cabbage leaves for making wraps and the rose tteokbokki (the penne alla vodka of the spicy rice cake world), with chewy rice tubes tossed with bacon in a creamy sauce. Nowadays, it means boxes of crispy fried chicken wings and mozzarella-stuffed corn dogs at 1st Street Pocha, a Korean street food restaurant along First Street’s new car-free plaza. Before the pandemic, that meant hand-pulled noodles, sizzling kalbi and bottles of soju at Du Kuh Bee, one of Beaverton’s most lamentable pandemic-time restaurant closures (a second location lives on in Northeast Portland). We’re just hitting our stride.Korean food fans have lined up for last-call at the narrow, dimly lit pub next to Nak Won for more than a decade. To make it, you have to be willing to do the boring things. “It’s not ‘Jerry Food.’ I go for the classics. By his estimation, he’s Portland’s oldest working chef barring a 100-year-old grandma, no one’s made more pasta. “It’s a feel thing,” confides Huisinga, and no one else in the kitchen is allowed to make it.Ĭronan’s now 72. Inside tip: you won’t find more tender, tone-perfect gnocchi around. He seems fired up as ever, making true risotto every Wednesday, two batches only, laboriously stirred (no one does this), and rolling out up to five pastas daily, drying sheets in the dining room. Chef Jerry Huisinga has been here from Day One, shopping to chopping (this after 22 years as the “pasta guy” at Portland’s legendary Genoa). Live jazz, Cronan’s latest brainstorm, is now in session every other Sunday, with musicians camped among the couches. Next door, Bar Mingo remains a city treasure. Why lunch, why now? “Industry experts said lunch was dead,” shrugs Cronan. Best dish so far: spaghetti, lovingly crunched with toasted breadcrumbs, capped with tail-on grilled shrimp. Since last fall, it’s become a favorite, with its old-school skewers (chicken to lamb), grilled pizzas, and glistening roasted vegetables-everything available in half portions, including glasses of wine. Add a glass of Barbaresco, and you’re golden. Everyone still orders the wonderful sugo di carne over penne pasta, hunky shreds of wine-braised beef and earth perfumes. The food (pastas, salads, fresh mozz and tomatoes, a bistecca) is what it always was: a taste of ’90s-era San Francisco Italian, not spectacular but a solid pleasure comfortable in its own skin. Cameron Winery’s famed (and famously eccentric) owner John Paul is so at home that he merely walks in, grabs a key, and puts his own bottles in the cooler. Mingo is always true to its Mingo-ness: snug wood tables, angular bar, and lots of happy petals from nearby Sammy’s Flowers. Sure, the hour-wait crowds have decamped, but eating at Caffe Mingo remains a vivacious experience. There’s never a whiff of calcified cuisine or desperate gimmicks here. The Cronan continuum holds lessons for any up-and-coming chef or restaurateur who’d want to listen-especially as Portland’s scene slides into wild inconsistency and “borderless cuisine” confusion. Just look for the guy whose bicep has a Caffe Mingo tattoo, a staff gift for Cronan’s 70th birthday. Or, catch him steps away at Caffe Mingo, which looks like a still-life of a kitchen that cares, with its veal bone paintings, onion crates parked in the dining room, and good Italian wine bottles everywhere. It’s a house of marble tables, living room couches, and lasagna good enough to hang in a museum. His résumé includes the long-gone Delfina’s, the OG ’80s watering hole where Gus Vant Sant and Will Vinton held court and diners wondered at this strange green stuff called “pesto.” Today, with his thick art glasses and retina-searing red watch, Cronan holds forth at his enduring gem Bar Mingo most nights. Cronan’s territory is NW 21st Avenue, between Kearney and Lovejoy, where he’s masterminded three Italian-food hangouts of note.
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