Have you been to Cafe Castagna? In the past half year or so, they have been making several updates. First, back in June of 2014 Chef Wesley Johnson updated the menu to have a more Middle Eastern flair, inspired by Israel and Chef Wes’ previous experience prior to his sous chef position at Castagna with Michael Solomonov at Zahav in Philadelphia (the restaurant that helped put Israeli food on the American radar a handful of years ago) as well as time at Levant. It seems that in the past year celebrating Middle Eastern food has finally arrived in Portland – both in a huge boom of gyro, hummus, and falafal carts oddly downtown, and the elevated food such as Levant, Mediterranean Exploration Company, and Cafe Castagna.

Then in October, Cafe Castagna started serving brunch, which was quickly raved by Karen Brooks at Portland Monthly as an intriguing new brunch option. Cafe Castagna takes reservations so you won’t need to stand in a line like many brunch options. I personally like their offering at brunch of malawach, served with tomato sauce, zhoug, hard boiled egg. A Malawach (pronounced mal-ah-wak) is a thin folded pastry that is fried, sort of a mashup between a pita or naan and phyllo dough. During my brief visit in Israel, my typical breakfast was just pastry and cheese (so much glorious fresh Israeli cheese!) and sometimes a bit of shakshuka but more often, not- coffee and pastry and cheese was quick and easy.

To recreate my breakfasts in Israel I also order the grilled halloumi with honey they have at Cafe Castagna and for a little bit, I am transported to when I was there. It’s not the best value – you would pay less if you ordered their eggs benedict with their house smoked lamb ham, or their version of shakshouka with tomato, chili, goat feta, egg served with pita and optionally adding sujak sausage, or even their classic burger with the additions of cheese and bacon and hatch chili if you wanted. But this combination is too authentic and nostalgic for me personally to mind.

This month, Cafe Castagna also unveiled a simplification of their menu into starters, shared plates, and a few classics left over from the original Cafe Castagna menu. They also offered an option of a Family Style Dinner in which for $30 or $40 a head, the entire table gets served various chef selections to eat family style, just like you would see families doing Israel with tables covered with plates and everyone eating a bit of everything.

Thanks to Watershed Communications, I was able to try the Family Style Dinner experience. The difference between the $30 or $40 price is that you get more options such as cheese, or meats, to your table. Although it’s Chef’s Choice, you can let the server know if you have any dishes from the menu that you really want to make sure are included/not included.

For our group of 5, we began with starters like the fried panissa with aioli and harissa that tastes lighter than you would initially think, with a perfect crisp outside and pillowy inside, and the other starter of the warm fresh flatbread served with a trio of dips that include chicken liver mousse, blend of harissa and labneh, and Turkish hummus. That harissa and labneh container was completely empty when we were done with it.

We were able to try all the salads. Of the three, the citrus salad with meyer lemon, ginger, orange, grapefruit, charred garlic, and basil was a revelation- I would have not thought to order it, but now you and I both know better. The charred garlic is light and has a bit of sweetness!

My equally favorite salad was the salad with baked halloumi cheese, romaine, apple, pomegranate, and candied nuts which just had wonderful texture and bursts of flavor from the components. The big chunks of halloumi cheese definitely do not hurt.

The last salad we shared was the celery and apple salad with yogurt, golden raisins, and chile which was also great – the coolness of the yogurt with the crunch of the celery and apple and fun surprises of chili is yet another pleasing profile of flavors.

These 3 salads are all unique and with their own character that shows how Cafe Castagna and Chef Wes can celebrate vegetables on their own. Sides of vegetables that we were able to try included seared beets with tahini, roasted carrots with zhoug and feta, and (not pictured) roasted brussels sprouts with chickpeas, preserved citrus, black olive, and aleppo chile. All three were compelling in their complexity of flavor that again, showcase vegetables and flavors without needing any help from a lot of fat and/or meat.

I was extremely excited thinking about taking my vegetarian F back to this restaurant already, even though I hadn’t even finished my meal yet. I would recommend Cafe Castagna for anyone with vegetarians because of the combinations of flavors and large variety you can order!

On the meat side, our group shared an Ultimate Meat pie in the form of Cipaille with braised hen, pork, veal marrow bone, baharat spice, and potatoes under crispy puff pastry. Look at the big marrow bone and hen legs sticking out!

A dish of whole grilled trout with tabbouleh, sorrel, tahini, and pomegranate was excellent.  We also tried the lamb meatballs with braised cabbage, cilantro and serrano pepper, which is the only dish I had that evening which was off to me – the lamb meatballs seemed a bit dry to me and not as flavorful as all the other dishes on the table.

Of these 3 proteins, my recommendation is the fish, which symbolic of new beginnings, progress and prosperity. Traditionally greens and grains represent money in the Middle East, while pomegranate is for luck and a whole fish is allegoric of coins, prosperity and progress.

One of the highlights of the evening was also this rich (and still vegetarian) celery root and Parmesan agnolotti with sauteed black trumpet mushrooms. So rich, a little went a long way in making you satisfied.

Coming soon to the menu as Chef Wes is trying to perfect it is another dish we were able to preview, a combination of Middle Eastern flavors and French ballotine technique with a crisped fried rabbit, a forcemeat with rabbit and lamb ham, and Persian Wedding Rice. 

The Persian Wedding Rice is cooked with butter and specked with various additional ingredients to the rice until the bottom layer of the rice crisps up in a manner reminiscent of a good paella or korean stone bowl. The dish was served with the deglazed jus but I didn’t think it needed it because there was already so much tasty goodness going on, and I didn’t want to soften my rice. I am anxiously watching and waiting to see this dish be added to the menu so I can have it again.

The dinner included desserts in the form of these perfectly sized profiteroles with halva ice cream, honey and pistachio and chili, these are not listed on the dessert menu and are a special light finish to the Family Style Dinner.

One of the amazing values at Cafe Castagna is their wine menu, which is a list of $45 bottles. That’s right, just $45, all carefully curated to include some unique options and all go amazingly well with the food. If you order a bottle to go with a family style dinner, the cost drops to only $40 a bottle, and so is really worth it when dining in a group. There are also some exquisite cocktails and non-alcoholic mocktails also.

Cafe Castagna (as well as Castagna) offers reservations, including by OpenTable. Cafe Castagna is open for dinner only 5 – 10 PM Tuesday – Sunday, and has happy hour Tuesday-Friday from 5-6 PM and from 9PM to close. They also offer Sunday Brunch from 10 AM – 2 PM.

Have you noticed a trend in Middle Eastern food, and have you had or are you interested in trying the new Israeli cuisine that seems so hot now?

Disclosure: The family style dinner meal was complimentary, my trip to brunch was on my own dime. I will always provide my honest opinion and assessment of all products and experiences I may be given. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are entirely my own.