Blogtown, PDX

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Food Nutshell Q&A

Posted by Ezra Caraeff on Thu, Sep 13 at 11:25 AM

Despite eating food daily (three times a day, often more), I seldom write restaurant reviews. Not only are they difficult to write (I secretly fear my review will end up here), it’s also a world I don’t know too much about.

But when offered the chance to write about Nutshell, I was more than willing, seeing as the North Portland restaurant just might be my new favorite dining option in town. The review ran this week, but due to space issues, we had to cut my Q&A with chef Sean Coryell, the mad genius behind the restaurant’s wildly inventive menu. But if you are interested in what he has to say, it’s after the jump. Enjoy.

As a longtime chef (and vegan), why do you feel that so much vegetarian food is aimed at calling attention to what it is not (burgers, hot dogs, etc)?

Sean Coryell: It's silly how it has to come to a meat-based orientation for foods that reach way too far into trying to be something that they're not. As to why, I think that it's a marketability and familiarity approach, so that the public can find their way. It's unnecessary though, and perhaps it's a detriment to the reputation of this food because as far as I'm concerned, most of those processed foods are not nutritious and they're nothing like actual meat. There are some exceptions, but for the most part it's true, and people know it.

Since Nutshell is far from your typical vegan restaurant, did you ever think about not including the word "vegan" in its description? The word often has a negative stigma to it, especially to close-minded carnivores.

As for the word "vegan," I agree, it's stigmatic. In fact, I never use the word on the menu for just that reason, except in the case of defining some wines and beers as such. I believe that this food is good enough to stand up to anyones cooking—vegan or not. So why mention it if people have a different approach to eating this food? Stigma-free as we are, this is just excellent food, and again, people know it. I don't think you can fool people when it comes to that.

One last question. Do you have any plans for the back of the restaurant, the empty area where the sofa and ATM are?

Yes, we do have plans for the back of the restaurant. The existing art gallery will continue to grow, and a pizza kitchen is being installed. The pizza will be vegan, and I will also serve Stromboli. Additionally, I will incorporate my 100-grain flour into the dough for a far more nutritious and flavorful experience. Conceivably, you could eat a slice of pizza that has 120 ingredients in it. Furthermore, we're negotiating with graffiti artists "The London Police" to do an installation in our restaurant that will probably be in our back room, and giant, much the same size as the "Bigfoot" mural that graces our dining room. A very special bar will also be added soon, and we're designing it now. I can tell you that we will be featuring Sake drinks and the same quality food that Nutshell has become known for. Keep an eye out.

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Comments

did you ask them when they plan on taking Credit/debit cards. I loved Nutshell, but after being forced to use the onsite ATM and being charged an extra $3.50 for may meal (indirectly) there was a sour taste in my mouth. I know now to bring cash, but how many others don't know that until they have arrived. There are few banks close by, so one is stuck using the onsite ATM. Further, I can only assume the owners of Nutshell are getting a part of that ATM's fees. Seems a bit shysterish to me.

Posted by dieselboi | September 13, 2007 11:51 AM

Glad to have a place to comment on this review. Great job Sean, you just said the same things I have said repeatedly to folks about eating habits. Too many of my vegan friends are still meat-eaters in their dining habits, and eat food with highly-processed soy instead of meat and think it is healthy! There is nothing that tastes better than a simple pasta, or just bread, salt and olive oil (except maybe with a tomato or avocado added on). Thanks for helping with the revolution to get people to realize how GREAT food can be without meat without having to resort to any philosophical debate...it's just good food. Are ya'll hiring?

Posted by amazed | September 13, 2007 12:47 PM

I'll use this space to pimp the completely awesome store where I suspect nutshell gets all their salt.

http://atthemeadow.com/

These guys deserve all the pub they can get.

Posted by Daaaaave | September 13, 2007 1:51 PM

bigfoot also did a mural at missing link on belmont. is he in pdx these days?

Posted by >>> | September 13, 2007 4:38 PM

Agreed on the silliness of fake meat.

I bought Brenda Davis's book Becoming Vegan (I'm a happy recent convert) and was surprised to see all the exhortations to consume fortified soymilk and other soy foods, as well as fortified fruit juice, like that nasty shit Tropicana sells.

The lesson I took away from this was that minerals, especially calcium, really are a big deal, and vegans (as well as everyone else) need to deal with that. There's plenty of calcium in kale, collards, almonds, etc., but surely there will be days when I won't get the RDA of calcium from unprocessed/unfortified food sources. So I decided to keep high-quality supplements around instead of having to chug soymilk or eat Special K just for the calcium. I was surprised that Becoming Vegan didn't do much with the supplement option, aside from B12 of course. Great book otherwise.

Posted by Spine | September 13, 2007 7:10 PM

i love the restaurant, but a salt menu? really? is it a joke that i am not getting?

Posted by marc | September 13, 2007 9:37 PM

wow. what did i miss when i ate at nutshell? the food was mediocre at best and the service was horrible. we chalked the bad service up to it being a new restaurant. the best thing we ate was the vichyssoise (excellent), but the rest of the menu seemed overpriced and pretentious. the group i went with couldn't help but laugh at how nutshell described everyday ingredients in the fanciest terms possible. to us it seemed like they were trying to veil their poor offerings in pretension, like they were trying to cater to some upper-crust vegan crowd.

as a vegan and proud north portland resident, i was thrilled to see nutshell open and not be the same starch-and-meat-knockoff vegan joint as so many of those place are. and yes, marc -- i thought the same thing. a salt bar? seemed like a stretch. though we didn't know it existed since our waiter never told us about it...

Posted by leah | September 14, 2007 8:24 AM

The whole salt thing is interesting actually... looking at the meadow website they seem to have a serious amount of sea salts and flavored salts that compliment foods and are unlike "normal" salts. they have some guides on salts at www.atthemeadow.com/guides. cooking uses and other interesting stuff.

Posted by Micha | September 14, 2007 6:27 PM

their prices are actually really good. almost everything is cheaper than Pirate's Tavern, which is so ridiculous. the Tavern makes almost nothing from scratch and barely use any fresh produce and they're way the hell out in the boonies. i know the Tavern is changing stuff up right now, i hope their prices are one of the things getting changed....
i wasn't really into the salt on bread thing but i was excited to get to try some fancy salts.

Posted by karla | September 15, 2007 12:18 PM

apparently the owners have two other restaurants that serve foie gras, which is the most UN vegan thing i can think of. the food was excellent when i went there, but the information i learned later left a sour taste in my mouth. it is so unfortunate that a restaurant with such a tasty, innovative menu is so hypocritical.

Posted by Kelsey | September 24, 2007 4:48 PM

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