Leave town for a day or two.

Is it possible that a salad could change someone’s life? Probably not. Recently however, I did have a salad that became the pivotal focal point for how I will shape the menu at my restaurant when it eventually opens. I have been actively working on Restaurant Marché for about a year, writing the business plan, securing financing, working with landlords, designers, contractors, graphic artists, my wife and my own internal voices to come up with a design, a menu, a kitchen that makes sense.

Then, intrigued by an e-mail invitation to experience “Portland Perks,” I hopped a train with my wife Betsy, checked into a hotel and went out to dinner.

I have been hearing about Cathy Whims’ swank Italian bistro for years and this was our chance to experience it. The place was everything I imagined it would be and more. Authentic Italian, check; pure Portland, also check; inspirational, that too. I hesitate to use a word like inspirational when I’m on the brink of opening my own place. I could probably just confess that it was influential in some vague way and leave it at that. But “inspirational” is really more like it. That “spiri-“ part refers to breath, and the place was like a deep cleansing breath of fresh air.

Chef Whim’s place reminded me that once it’s up and running, a restaurant can be a calm, restorative place where people are fed, nourished and entertained, even while the staff enjoys productive, meaningful work that’s simultaneously faithful to tradition and creative. 

“Nostrana” means “ours;” or as the back of Whim’s business card puts it, “Local is the most powerful word in the market and it is never taken in vain. In Italian it is … nostrane, whose literal meaning is ours. TO shoppers, ours means its better because it has traveled a short distance to market, hence its fresher. An underlying, more emotional secondary message is that it will be more satisfying because the taste is the comforting one of home.” – Marcella Hazan

Well, I might add a third meaning to the word: unique to us. Take for example Whims’ lettera d’amore to the traditional Tuscan bistecca alla firoentina. The two-inch thick full kilo of beef is dry-aged for thirty days and tastes, not so much of Florence as it does of Oregon. Grilled over a wood fire and seasoned with nothing more than salt, pepper, olive oil and squeeze of lemon, it is a revelation. Of course it’s crazy expensive ($60), but it would generously feed a family of four. Even more expressive of this “Unique to us” definition of Nostrana is the salad.

Inslata Nostrana is radicchio, Parmigiano, rosemary-sage croutons (Made form leftover focaccia) and a Caesar-style dressing. Italy doesn’t even DO Caesar salad; it’s an American salad that originated in Tijuana of all places. But here, Caesar is both perfectly Italian and perfectly Portland. The secret according to Whims is to soak the radicchio overnight in cold water to extract the bitterness and crisp it up. It is quite simply a revelation.

That’s how I want food at Restaurant Marché to be; not complicated, not necessarily unheard of, but revelatory. I want people to re-experience onion soup, reconsider steak frites, rediscover what it is to taste something familiar that tastes better than it ever has before. And while my diners are enjoying this kind of food, I want them to feel relaxed and happy the way my wife and I felt under the warm barrel ceiling of Nostrana.