When Canard opened in 2018, it was the precise restaurant Portland did not know it necessary, an all-working day cafe-bar with the glimpse of a wise Paris cave à manger and the similar anarchic solution to menu enhancement originally observed at sister restaurant Le Pigeon subsequent door. The eating home was slim and typically packed, specifically soon after it was named Portland’s 2018 Restaurant of the 12 months, but you could typically squeeze in for a breakfast duck stack, or come across standing space for a satisfied hour steam burger. As we wrote at the time, Canard “tries to be a little something for everyone and … succeeds superbly.”
Entrepreneurs Gabriel Rucker and Andy Fortgang want to hold that tactic at Canard’s 2nd spot, which will open in early summer season in the decrease Oregon Town storefront past residence to Grano Bakery, The Oregonian/OregonLive has uncovered. Joined by Canard chef de cuisine (and now husband or wife) Taylor Daugherty, the trio hope to start serving steam burgers, Salisbury steak frites and smooth serve sundaes by June or July to a eating home that, along with a new long term patio, will just about double the original’s 45 seats.
“Canard has normally been what you make of it,” said Fortgang. “Come in for a cocktail, arrive in for a snack, have supper, make it your birthday, make it a Tuesday. This will be the exact same.”
Rucker and Fortgang have talked about opening a 2nd Canard since early 2020, a couple of months soon after closing downtown’s Very little Hen Bistro. But although other Portland restaurateurs have focused on new development in Beaverton or Lake Oswego, the longtime companions honed in on Oregon Metropolis, a Clackamas County metropolis when acknowledged for the sprawling paper mills encompassing close by Willamette Falls.
“When we to start with commenced looking exterior of Portland, it would not have been right to be in some strip mall or new progress,” Fortgang reported. “Restaurants are about the foods and the service, but also the really feel of the avenue, the experience of the room.”
The website they identified was beforehand residence to Grano, a good sourdough bakery that pivoted to wholesaling two a long time back, then shut for fantastic in November. The building has significant home windows overlooking the corner of 15th and Washington streets, a block from the steaming crab pot at Tony’s Fish Industry and the amazingly active lunch hurry at Oregon City Brewing and the Corner 14 food stuff cart pod. It is also considerably less than a 10 minute push from Rucker’s Milwaukie house. A substantial parking whole lot shared with wedding venue Abernethy Center was a selling point, as was the proximity to West Linn, Lake Oswego and Tualatin.
“We didn’t design it this way, but we identified a restaurant which is actually replicable,” Rucker reported. “Le Pigeon doesn’t work coming out below, or any where else. Very little Chicken wouldn’t. But Canard has these main menu things that are craveable and function no make any difference who you are.”
Daugherty — carrying a Hama Hama oyster cap with a brand reminiscent of Oregon City’s very own Arch Bridge — will perform alongside chef de cuisine Jacob Soule (Tiny Chicken) as the group’s “boots on the floor.” He says the new menu will highlight Canard staples, like the signature buttermilk pancakes cooked in duck extra fat and readily available all day with a pat of seared foie gras for people looking to crack their rapid with a bottle of Bordeaux. Steam burgers — our favorite new Portland burger the 12 months they debuted — French fries and delicate provide sundaes will be passed to the patio by a window carved into the facet of the new restaurant’s creating. Canard’s lunch service, suspended throughout the pandemic, will make a return here, as will the ring-formed Paris-Brest dessert.
But Rucker and Daugherty are leaving room to experiment. Menu concepts currently being tossed all over appropriate now include a Thai-type shrimp cocktail, duck confit quesadillas, a dry-aged Kobe beef Salisbury steak frites with morel gravy, togarashi-dusted Tokyo sizzling fried hen and a smoked pork ribeye served with a scallion pancake.
Rucker says the group designs to listen to locals to determine out what is effective and what does not, making a restaurant that “doesn’t bring Portland to Oregon Town, but that Oregon Town needs for alone.”
“What I would appreciate to have come about is young children get done with soccer or baseball apply, then they are sitting exterior with their parents owning ice cream and steam burgers and fries, but there can nevertheless be individuals possessing oysters or Salisbury steak with a wonderful bottle of wine,” Rucker explained. “We want to preserve this as an everybody’s cafe.”
Canard hopes to open up its 2nd locale at 1500 Washington St. in Oregon City in June or July of this 12 months.
Read far more:
The making of chef Gabriel Rucker: expertise, tricky get the job done and ‘Ruck Luck’
Why downtown Oregon City’s food scene has turn out to be so interesting
Channeling Paris (and White Castle), Canard opens next doorway to Le Pigeon
Portland’s 2018 Restaurant of the Calendar year: Canard
Willamette Falls remains a area of spiritual worth for Northwest tribes
— Michael Russell, [email protected] @tdmrussell