Portland cooks: this town has turned into a culinary hot spot, thanks to inspired chefs, an adventurous clientele, and some of the country's best produce

IN 1992, Vitaly Paley was cooking at a small restaurant outside Limoges, France. A box of morels arrived in the kitchen--moist and firm, with a deep, woodsy flavor. Where, he wondered, were these perfect fungi from?

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Paley identified Oregon, birthplace of the morels he'd admired, as a new culinary frontier. He headed there with his wife, Kimberly, and opened Paley's Place Bistro and Bar, in Portland.

"Today Portland still has the same wondrous ingredient base to work with that first drew me here," Paley says, "but now we're also on the forefront of the sustainable movement, and we have a great range of restaurants."

He's not alone in his assessment. "We're really lucky to live in Portland," says Naomi Pomeroy, founder of Clarklewis, a restaurant known for its innovative, Italian-influenced cooking. "The physical proximity of the farms is amazing, and the growers we work with are still very small-scale. Most of our farmers do their own deliveries to our kitchen door." All of her suppliers farm within two hours of the restaurant, and one--Ojala Farm, in northwest Portland--is just 20 minutes away.

But it takes more than superlative and sustainable ingredients to create a restaurant culture like Portland's. Rather than having a predictable top-shelf restaurant selection downtown with a few outlying destination restaurants, it features drive-worthy eateries in practically every neighborhood. Along with showstoppers that get national attention, like Clarklewis and Paley's Place, a tremendous number of small spots serve remarkably good food.

What else makes Portland such an across-the-board great eating town? It's primarily the residents of Portland themselves. Portlanders are proud of their burg and support local efforts accordingly. Their love of their city--its physical beauty, its art, its wines, its quirky sophistication-translates into a restaurant-going public any chef would envy. "Our customers are willing to try anything," says Pomeroy--even an all-organ-meat dinner she and founding Clarklewis chef Morgan Brownlow, who has since moved on, offered one year for Valentine's Day at their previous restaurant. (It sold out.)

This culinary curiosity also explains the wide range of restaurants that thrive here, from Peruvian nuevo-Andean superstar Andina to the recent explosion of Southeast Asian places on 82nd Avenue. As Adam Berger, owner of Tabla Mediterranean Bistro, puts it, "Good food has become part of the culture of Portland, along with bridges and views of Mt. Hood." It all began, he claims, with Paley's Place over a decade ago, along with other pioneering restaurants like Wildwood and Higgins. "They educated their customers, who came to expect more--and now we all keep moving that bar along."

So where are Paley's sights aimed now? "I've become too attached to this way of cooking to leave," he says. "Our farmers structure our menu every day. I'm never sure what's coming in the back door. I just know it's going to be excellent."

Radicchio and apples in pine-nut vinaigrette

This irresistible combination of apples with bitter radicchio, buttery pine nuts, and a rich, sweet-tart dressing is from Clarklewis.

PREP AND COOK TIME 30 minutes

MAKES 6 servings

1/2 cup hard apple cider
1 1/2 tsp. honey
1 shallot, minced
2 tbsp. cider vinegar
About 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 head radicchio, halved, cored, and cut into 1/4-in. strips
2 Pinova, Gala, Honeycrisp, or other crisp apples, quartered, cored, and
  thinly sliced
6 slices prosciutto
1/4 cup parmesan shavings
Freshly ground black pepper

1. Put cider and honey in a small pan over medium-high heat. Cook until reduced to a syrup (about 1 tbsp.), 10 to 15 minutes.

2. Put shallot, vinegar, and 1/2 tsp. salt in a medium bowl and let sit 5 to 10 minutes. Meanwhile, put 1/4 cup pine nuts into a mortar and use pestle to work into a rough paste. Set aside. Stir cider syrup into the shallot-vinegar mixture, then whisk in olive oil. Stir in pine-nut paste to create a creamy dressing and add salt to taste.

3. Put radicchio in a large bowl. Drizzle with half of the dressing and toss thoroughly. Toss in apples, adding more dressing if necessary to coat the salad. Divide salad among 6 plates. Top each salad with prosciutto, parmesan, remaining 1/4 cup pine nuts, and pepper, dividing evenly.

PER SERVING 239 CAL., 28% (68 CAL.) FROM FAT; 6.9 G PROTEIN; 18 G FAT (3.5 G SAT.); 17 G CARBO (2.2 G FIBER); 386 MG SODIUM; 9.9 MG CHOL.

Tabla Mediterranean Bistro magical egg ravioli

Swiss chard, a bit of cheese, and an egg yolk become much more than the sum of their parts in this dish. Use the freshest eggs you can find. People with compromised immune systems and others concerned about salmonella should avoid undercooked eggs.