Grace Cafe has taken over the space formerly occupied by Delores and before that Smokehouse Tavern. Some of the remnants of Delores remain, most noticeably with the flamingos that the namesake mother Delores loved that are still seen on the walls. But, unlike the protein heavy Smokehouse Tavern, or rich heavy food of Polish inspired Delores, Grace Cafe is a gluten-free kitchen that sets the stage with a vegan or vegetarian preparation that you can optionally add proteins like Carman Ranch hanger steak, szechuan spied pork belly, Mad Hatcher chicken thigh, or Korean cured salmon. The stars now are the surprising combinations of global influences built upon the foundation of chef and co-owner Brian Han’s Korean heritage, merged with the health consciousness of California upbringing and restaurant experience in the Bay Area and Los Angeles until his move to Portland in 2020. The world influenced flavors at Grace Cafe really make it unique.
As an example, a signature dish found on both the lunch and dinner menu is the Purple Reign. This dish offers okinawan sweet potato with seared oyster mushroom, shiso chermoula, salted plum tzatziki, market greens, and avocado. That’s right, you can find Japanese sweet potato and shiso and salted plum combined with North African chermoula and Greek tzatziki sauce concepts.
Meanwhile at dinner, where you will find more entree dishes then the bowl-centered lunch menu, the King Carnitas offers Thai green curry carnitas, yellow corn, rainbow chard, Mario’s sope, daily salsa. Somehow the different spicy layers of Thai green curry with Mexican works, tickling the tongue in different but complimentary ways.
We also tried the Kabocha! a vegan dish with roasted kabocha, miso mole, black lime cashew cream, pickled red onions, pepitas. We both immediately thought how great a dish this would be during Thanksgiving. Thankfully the Grace Cafe team is two steps ahead of us. They are already thinking of sharing the immigrant experience by offering a Korean-American Thanksgiving with items like white kimchi water brined turkey, korean fried chicken with perilla ranch dressing, miso potato gratin, goji-cranberry sauce, miso potato gratin, Japanese curry green bean casserole, japchae inspired stuffing, black sesame coconut cream cornbread, and kabocha pie. YES I’M DROOLING ALREADY SIGN ME UP. Seriously where is the sign up sheet, I’m ready.
But wait there’s more…
More proof of the wonders they can make with vegetables? This dessert of Purple Velvet Cake, made with Japanese sweet potato, vanilla, star anise, cream cheese coconut black sesame glaze, and candied walnut. Other dessert options included zucchini bread with sumac sanso, and ability to add lemongrass ice crema or lemon shiso sorbet. Everything but the lemongrass ice cream is vegan.
One of the pros of coming to dinner is that you will find access to a large selection of the “ephemeral banchan” menu rather then just the kimchi at lunch. That said, the fact that Grace Cafe offers vegan kimchi is already an immense win. But, to have the option of (on my visit in September) 14 banchan, of which 9 are vegan and 4 are vegetarian, and they are all listed here to order a la carte (the usual Korean dining experience is you just get what they bring, whatever it is) is inclusive and transparent and you can seriously fill your table. Thank you. Each banchan is priced at $4 or $5, and vary from the Korean flavors like house kimchi (gut jeori), white kimchi (baek), mom han’s radish kimchi (kkakdugi); to the global influences like mala peanuts, zucchini fritters with preserved pink lemon ponzu, or sichutan green beans with nori za’atar.
We tried the blistered shishitos with mushroom powder and yuzu, and also the sungold tomatoes with tom kha ricotta, and enjoyed both. You could just order 1 of each banchan with a size of multigrain rice and make that a meal for two probably. These banchan sound like they will change up often, as the menu notes they are “here one day, gone the next, don’t sleep on them”, if you need more motivation.
The name Grace is a nod to fact that Christianity is a strong presence in Korean culture as a religion (1/3 of Korea is Christian, perhaps even higher with Korean-American population), and chef Brian and co-partner BJ Smith are “recovering Catholics” per a Portland Monthly interview by Kat Hamilton. Thanks to local Portland artist Hayley Cassatt who created the window art, you get a hint of stained glass that welcomes you when you enter, and also provides whimsy and warmth to the interior. A cooler at the entrance teases “Pick Your Poison” with a rainbow of their housemade juices like “oh honey” with honey dew melon, zucchini, lemongrass, or “don’t go chasing watermelons” with watermelon, beet, lemon, mint.
Inside, you’ll also find art displayed such as Mikola Accuardi, seen here with libation creation of “From Persia with Love” with housemade pistachio vodka from beverage manager Emily Matthews combined with lemon, rose water, sake, soda water. Another fun cocktail was the “Curry and I’m sauced, boy” with rum, banana, curry leaf, and lime. The cocktail list is as original as the food, and carefully curated to 6 cocktails plus the ability to spike any of their housemade juices with a shot. You can find the juices, smoothies, as well as teas and Proud Mary coffee, on their day menu also.
The diaspora cuisine here is part of the perspective of rather then fusion, all these sensory flavors and techniques are part of the multitude of culture and traditions of americans of various backgrounds (as opined in their inaugural zine). I would agree that here, rather then world influences of flavors and techniques melting into each other, losing a little bit of the original in the fusion process, here at Grace Cafe they each stand on its own, and together. It’s the culinary equivalent every immigrant second generation experiences with the hyphen before something-American. Are we the diluted combination of two cultures, or are we the best of both worlds? Grace Cafe is here to prove the latter.
Also, how cool is this zine? Besides starting the conversation about identity with food and drink and proclaiming this is “who we are”, they shout-out to collaborators from farms to artists, shares their favorite places to eat, a recipe from mom, and offer a link to a playlist. And there’s a hint of more menu ideas to come for the season (along with the Thanksgiving ideas I mentioned earlier), like acorn flour in spaetzle, jujube mahuamarra, gochuchang made with aleppo, pastrami cured salmon… Grace Cafe is definitely worth keeping a pulse on. 
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