Jenn Louis Takes on Portland

If you’re heading to Feast Portland, chances are you will run into Jenn Louis. The chef/owner of local favorites, Lincoln, a casual fine dining destination, and Sunshine Tavern, even more casual with a clubhouse vibe, will be ubiquitous at the event, which kicks off on Thursday, September 18.

Louis will start the weekend cooking a collaborative dinner with Kentucky-based chef Ed Lee, known for his American South-meets-Southeast Asia flavors at Louisville’s 610 Magnolia. The duo will combine efforts with a Latin flair, using a caja China, a traditional Cuban roasting box, to cook lamb, pork and quail. Expect delicious “sticky, sweet, salty, and savory,” results, Louis says. On Friday, Louis takes to the stage at the Grand Tasting for a demo about all things tartare. She continues on Saturday night at High Comfort with a seafood bloody Mary with Oregon shrimp, Dungeness crab and albacore tuna. She’ll also design a sandwich for her buddies at Dave’s Killer Bread at the Grand Tasting.

It’s her signature tireless energy that makes Louis one of the city’s—if not the country’s—most recognizable chefs. Having appeared on Bravo’s Top Chef Masters; garnered honors as a Food & Wine Best New Chef; and with an upcoming cookbook about Italian dumplings slated for 2015, it’s hard to believe that Louis once never thought of cooking as a career option. “I didn’t realize it was an option until I was out of college, when I, through a friend, landed a job working for the North Carolina Outward Bound School,” she says. That was Louis’s turning point. “I was able to be creative, I had to manage a budget, and I learned to cook everything from bread to desserts,” she says. “I loved it.” It set her on the path to culinary school in Portland. “I’ve been cooking ever since,” she says, opening Lincoln in 2008 and Sunshine Tavern in 2011.

Though she previously never thought of cooking professionally, food was always a part of Jenn’s life growing up in southern California. “My mom was in charge of the kitchen. She made everything from scratch and we ate at home all of the time,” she recalls. “And there was great variety. Being Jewish, she made challah every Friday. Our roots were Eastern European and I really understood those foods.” The Mexican border was also just three hours away, and that, too, had a huge impact on Louis’s palate. “Just growing up so close to the border, you have a huge appreciation for Mexican cuisine,” she says. “And I’m not talking Taco Bell. I mean flour tortillas made into really delicious burritos and a lot of complex flavors.”

Next, how Louis ended up in the kitchen… [pagebreak]

Her love of Mexican flavors also drew her to Oaxaca, where she immersed herself in cooking classes. “We learned to make cheese in somebody’s backyard,” she remembers. “We went to a really small artisan mezcal producer. We got to do a lot of grass-rootsy things, and that was amazing.”

That experience followed her to her restaurants, where you might find tajin, a Mexican salt, chili and lime mix gracing roasted peach and melon at Lincoln; or a Hornitos Reposado-based cocktail with Aperol, grapefruit and mole bitters at Sunshine Tavern. “People love Latin flavors in Portland,” she points out. “We have a few Peruvian restaurants. We have some Mexican restaurants. We have some great taquerias.” Some of her local favorites include Taqueria Santa Cruz and Angel Food and Fun.

Portland’s biggest asset, however, according to Louis, is its bounty. “Because of how close we are to farmland, to urban growth foundries, because of so many hippies coming up here in the '60s and '70s, and farming, we have a lot of really amazing product and a good variety of it, and we can grow almost all year round. And our meat is really great. Around the coast, our seafood is really great, too.”

It’s certainly enough to guarantee that there’s never a dull menu moment at Lincoln and Sunshine, and the area riches are sure to provide, for the third year running, yet another incredibly satisfying Feast weekend.