Press

Organic Style - Oct. 2005
20 Fresh Places to Eat

Lauro Kitchen
3377 S. E. Division, #106
Portland, Ore.
503-239-7000
laurokitchen.com
Entrées, $15 to $19

Food-obsessed Portland is a tough town to win over. But David Machado, a longtime board member of the city's farmers' market, knew what he was doing two years ago when he found an old plumbing-supply warehouse in a scruffy neighborhood sorely lacking in restaurants. Machado played up the space's industrial chic, leaving the beams exposed and massive windows bare, and installed a pizza oven and warm lighting. "Portland is gray and dreary for so long," he says. "We wanted you to see a glow so you would come in from the rainy street."

They've come. A celebration of food from what the 50-year-old chef dubs "all the olive oil producing countries," the place has soared. Here, on any given night, Marseille-style seafood soup, Greek lamb kebabs, and a Moroccan chicken tagine may share the table. Mussels and chorizo cooked in a Portuguese hinged pot is one of Machado's signatures.

Today, Lauro Kitchen is the neighborhood hangout Machado envisioned, what one local newspaper calls "the happiest place in Portland."