There is a certain lively clamor that defines a Parisian bistro. You know it when you experience it. Clinking dishes, bouncing voices, a bubbly energy that travels around tables and across walls. A liveliness that bursts through the kitchen door as it swings open and closed. A tinkering bell that rings with incoming guests. A moment of connection that occurs between strangers placed side-by-side.
Little Bird Bistro has recreated this spirit in the middle of downtown Portland, and what’s more, the menu is full of personality and simplistic concepts that draw in guests from all over the city for lunch and dinner during the week, and for dinner on the weekends.
The second project of rock-star trio Gabriel Rucker, Andrew Fortgang and Erik Van Kley, Little Bird Bistro has often been referred to as the younger sibling to Le Pigeon, Gabriel’s highly acclaimed restaurant on East Burnside.
But to be accurate, this bistro, named by the Oregonian as the 2012 Restaurant of the Year, has emerged with wings that are more mature and refined than those of its ‘older’ sibling. This is in large part thanks to Erik, once Gabriel’s sous chef at Le Pigeon and now chef de cuisine at Little Bird.
“Geographically, now that I’m on the other side of the river from Gabriel, I’ve been forced to start cooking for myself,” said Erik.
Erik first met Gabriel in the kitchen of the Gotham Tavern where Erik was a line cook and Gabriel was a sous chef. Erik says they weren’t friends right off the bat. “Gabe was younger and substantially more talented than I was. I was almost a little intimidated by him. We actually started stealing moves from one another at one point,” said Erik.
He recalls a conversation with his mother when he told her that a certain chef he’d met at Gotham was most definitely on the road to becoming a star. “I had no idea at the time he was going to be so big,” said Erik.
And as Erik often says, their relationship since the days at Gotham is history.
Erik’s style at Little Bird is simple and tasteful in the most beautiful ways. Chicken Fried Trout with gribiche, fine herbs, radishes and pickled carrots is a dish that is so gorgeous in presentation and color, you can’t imagine what its simple genius will taste like until you begin to poke apart its colorful array. But it is the Cassoulet of Duck Leg with pork belly, sausage and white beans that exemplifies this chef’s spirit and his overarching rule of Little Bird’s cuisine—that each dish should hold three components that together pack a punch and encourage interactive dining.
“If I can really punch them in the head with a pork chop, a compote and a sauce, as long as I get a French dish out of it, then I did my job,” said Erik.
Erik has been packing culinary punches for most of his life. He started out in the restaurant business as a scrappy 17-year-old dishwasher in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Attracted to the cooks’ energy in a restaurant called Rose’s, he worked his way out of the dish-pit and onto the line where a moment of revelation came in the simple, well-executed flavors of a macaroni and cheese gratin.
“I was lured by the cooks. They played in bands. They had tattoos. There was this whole idol factor. I wanted desperately to know what they were doing,” said Erik.
For anyone that knows a bit about Erik and his Portland compatriot Gabe, you can’t help but see a full-fledged story. Now, we think it’s pretty safe to say that there is more than one teenager in the world looking at the tattooed arms and accolades of this chef and thinking, I want to do that.
By: Sarah Daily
Photo credits: Little Bird Bistro
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