Before they opened, chef Katy Millard and Ksandek Podbielski knew exactly what they wanted from Coquine.
The restaurant would be a reflection of themselves, a place to deposit all their passions and quirks, a second home for friends and an outlet for the farms where they held their first pop-ups. It would be formal enough for special occasion meals, yet not so fussy you couldn't drop by for a glass of wine and a bowl of pasta.
Last month, on a day that cycled indecisively between sun and hail and intermittent rain, we dropped by for just that. Coquine's small dining room was full, so we added our names to the waiting list, then killed time walking up Mount Tabor through the damp Douglas fir trees.
Unlike the weather that day, there was no indecision around our 2016 Restaurant of the Year. Coquine is exactly what Millard and Podbielski hoped it would be: warm and comforting, equally perfect for a lazy Wednesday dinner or a 25th-anniversary celebration. It's a restaurant designed to serve its neighbors, but a must-visit for out-of-towners, too.
And that pasta? When we visited, it was plump girella (an elaborate noodle named for a child's top) with milk-braised pork ragu, a scattering of sunchoke chips and a shower of Parmesan. It was fantastic.
Coquine, which sits in a hollow on the shoulder of Mount Tabor, is full of happy contradictions. It's a neighborhood cafe that's also a dining destination, a place where impressive technique and attentive service never feel off-putting. It's a restaurant with both a $55 prix-fixe menu and a $2.25 chocolate and smoked almond cookie that might be the best thing you eat all year.
At first glance, the menu could almost seem boring. Not many restaurants have the audacity to open in 2016 with a roast chicken as their centerpiece. Then you try that chicken, its skin perfectly crisp, its flesh perfectly juicy. This is a bird you would have gladly served to Julia Child, the culinary legend who famously judged restaurants by the quality of their roast chicken.
Snap peas with maple-mustard vinaigrette, pea shoots and benne seeds at Coquine.
Coquine replaces fireworks and unnecessarily bold flavors with subtlety and unerringly precise technique. Halibut is expertly seared and served in a broth that lingers in your mind for days. Farro and fava beans pair with smooth fava creme fraiche and a shocking flash of mint. Tempura-fried asparagus has a lacey crust and a brown-butter dashi that's meant for dipping, but which you'll probably be tempted to drink. Desserts -- from Millard and pastry chef Liz Kennedy -- follow the same path: Ripe, elderflower-glazed strawberries are nestled in a sweet cream with crunchy puffs of rice, almond and white chocolate.
There's personality behind this menu, though it's easily missed. What connects fried green tomatoes to chicken liver mousse? Shrimp and grits to potato gnocchi? To find out, you need to learn more about Millard and Podbielski, who by age 18 had more passport stamps than a Graham Greene character.
Millard was born in Rhodesia to an American father and Portuguese mother. They left during the uprising, when the country became Zimbabwe, eventually settling in Mobile, Alabama. Her first cooking memories are there, with her dad, picking herbs from his garden. "He used to say, we'll just make a simple little pasta dish," she says. "We'd finish six hours later."
A note on our Restaurant of the Year
For more than two decades, The Oregonian/OregonLive has named an annual Restaurant of the Year, with previous picks including Higgins, Pok Pok, Nostrana and Ox. Each year, the honor goes to a restaurant that represents something essential about our food scene, and where it's going. It does not necessarily go to the
(though it
) but rather one that encapsulated what we're eating, thinking about and loving that year. The pick has only repeated once (Castagna in
and
). The restaurant doesn't have to be new, though it often is. Coquine, which started as a pop-up, then created a community on the side of Mount Tabor, is our choice for 2016.
She worked in restaurants in Mobile and in East Lansing, Michigan, but those were just jobs, not a calling. After college, she packed a backpack with two pairs of jeans and headed to Europe, planning to stay for two months. Then her father took her to Guy Savoy.
"It was one of those meals that changes our life," Millard says of the celebrated Parisian restaurant. "There's a big difference between steak frites and a 12-course tasting menu that has three Michelin stars."
The next day, she returned to the restaurant, met chef Guy Savoy and handed him her resume.
"I told him I'd wash dishes," she said. "He laughed, as in, 'I wouldn't let you touch my dishware."
But Savoy did send her to one of his satellite bistros, where she peeled shallots and shrimp and cut bread into perfect little dice. She prepped, cooked fish, then meat. Eventually she left, taking gigs at increasingly rigorous restaurants, sometimes crying herself to sleep. It wasn't all "Ratatouille."
"Most people think it's so romantic," she says. "I drank a lot of wine, I ate stale baguettes, and the last dregs of cheese that I scraped out and took home. I was making $900 a month, working 16 hours a day."
In the end, she stayed for five years.
Chef Katy Millard at Coquine.
Turns out, Podbielski was also born in a country that no longer exists -- West Germany -- in a town that "literally looks like what German towns look like on beer steins," he says.
Podbielski's mother was a school teacher. His father was in the U.S. Army. Like Millard, he bounced around, from England to Eastern Europe to America and back. As a teenager, he made his way to Southern California, then up to Oregon for a job at Anne Amie Vineyards. After nine months, he took over the winery's hospitality department, setting up events, including the winery's Counter Culture street food festival, that continue today.
At the winery, Podbielski organized a dinner with chef Trent Pierce. After eating at Pierce's sublime seafood restaurant, Roe, he took a job as a back waiter, learning as he worked. On off days, he snagged shifts at Wafu, the busy Japanese izakaya at the front of Roe, but the fast pace didn't suit him. He was already learning his preferred service approach: Detail-oriented, thoughtful, sincere.
The couple started their pop-up series in 2012 at Troutdale's Dancing Roots farm. At the time, Podbielski figured he would contribute his events experience, a few thousand bucks and little else. He quickly realized he needed to take a deeper role.
"He just wanted to spend more time with me," Millard deadpans.
After three years and one baby -- Hugo, their toddler -- they were ready to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant. But with $40,000 and some Goodwill china to their name, they weren't likely to land a lease on Southeast Division Street.
"I like our little restaurant on the corner," Millard says. "We're not on a restaurant row, we're in a neighborhood. I want our place to be somewhere people know they're eating food that's responsibly sourced and made with love. That to me is more satisfying than something that is constructed to be on the cover of a magazine."
Opened nearly a year ago, Coquine already has a warm, lived-in feel. Drop by on a Sunday evening, and you might see a neighborhood dog happily lounging by the front door, locals reading by the small dogwood tree at the side or an employee literally stopping to smell the roses. On our visit, manager Andrew Moran, who worked with Podbielski from Roe, was eating at the bar on his day off. He had to have the girella pasta before it disappeared.
A few days later, Millard added a replacement: potato gnocchi with artichoke hearts, grated fiore sardo cheese and nasturtium petals. The flavors were different, but just as good: Responsibly sourced, made with love.
Coquine is open for breakfast and lunch, daily and dinner, Wednesday to Sunday; 6839 S.E. Belmont St.; 503-384-2483; coquinepdx.com
-- Michael Russell