I visited Farm Spirit Vegan Restaurant last year as part of my September Dinner celebrating my wedding anniversary with F. Then earlier this month we went for a second visit to see what magic they could pull in terms of their artistic presentation and locally sourced all completely vegan celebration of flavors during a winter season.

Also, we were celebrating a belated Valentine’s and dating anniversary. I don’t see why once you get married you wouldn’t celebrate both the dating anniversary and wedding anniversary, right? For Valentine’s we stayed in on the actual day and made fondue at home because it’s just too crowded and it’s more expensive to dine out – so we make this “Valentine’s Date Night” on a day after the actual holiday instead.

Although Farm Spirit has a set spot that they use, they operate as a pop up restaurant where you purchase tickets to your dinner before you go from their website for either Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday evening  – there is only one seating per day. Your online reservation will be to one of their Tasting Menu chef’s choice dinner courses for $75. The tickets prices listed already include a gratuity, so after paying for your reservation you only need to show up and enjoy! The courses are all vegan, and by request can be prepared gluten free too with advance notice. Some dishes do contain nuts.

Additionally, you can choose to buy a supplement of a beverage pairing of 6 total glasses to go with dinner that is either non-alcoholic ($27) or wine pairings($38). You can purchase this when you make your dinner reservations, or wait until you arrive and see the menu for the evening to choose, or purchase each glass a la carte.

The logistics of service will change in April. They plan to have more seatings per night, starting at 5:15pm and going as late as 8:30pm by not seating all their 14 seats at once. When I return again to see their spring line up I’ll have to let you know how that is!

Even when they change their seatings, I expect they will continue their gorgeous presentation, vigilance to fine dining service with changing out of silverware and attentiveness to filling your beverage and making sure you want for nothing. But there’s no pretense here, In fact it is the exact opposite –  still very laid back as they might sing or dance a little to the music streaming, and they don’t mind and in fact encourage if you use your hands to eat, lick the sauce from the plate, and maybe when serving dessert serve themself a little bit of ice cream too.

When you arrive, you will look for your seats labeled with your last name,  all the seats are part of a chef’s counter so you can see them plating the next courses and speak freely with them on how they were inspired or created their dish.

Then, the parade of colors begins… we were welcomed first with warm homemade bread with local olive oil as we waited for the other guests to arrive. Did you know you can get locally made olive oil in Portland from Oregon Olive Mill? At the end of the meal, we saw Chef Tim preparing the rolls for the dinner the next evening as our dinner service was ending so they would have time to rise – so your bread truly is made fresh that day that you are served it.

Head Chef Aaron Adams introduces everyone on the Farm Spirit staff we’ll be seeing this night, including himself, Chef Ricardo, Chef Tim, and Chef Taylor.

Now the dinner courses:

We selected the Farm Spirit Non Alcoholic Housemade Beverage Pairing, where there is one glass paired with every 2-3 courses. That started with Lemon and Thyme Kefir.

Bouquet with filbert yogurt to snack, a dish we were encouraged to eat with our hands by holding the little bouquet and dipping it by not being provided silverware. I wiped the yogurt off the plate with my fingers til nothing was left.

As always, it’s fascinating watching the plating magic happen and their exquisite eye to detail – and the tease of seeing the next dish be created before your eyes and aromas of the next course after that being prepared!

Warm smoked beets and preserved wild blackberries with fir, petite greens, and buckwheat

The next beverage pouring was Anise spiced Apple Juice

Arugula raab, smoked walnut milk, raw croutons, herb stems, and itty bitty kale chips

We were all wiping the plate clean of this rich next dish of Smoked potato puree, charred leeks, potato chips, ash, and black shallot – porcini jus, I was so impressed how melt in your mouth and flavorful this is without having to resort to the normal butter and cream or lots of garlic which are the usual supporting players.

Swiss chard stuffed like ravioli with cultured filbert, vegetal kvass, and parsley oil. This beauty took a while to compose, and it was fascinating how they sealed those pretty little leaves into “ravioli”. It’s dishes like this that show off how just because food is vegan doesn’t mean it can’t be bold without having to resort to a lot of spices – here fermentation to produce the kvass (a fermented liquid).

Next up for the drink pairing on the housemade non alcoholic side was Ginger Beer

When we saw the carrot course of Roasted carrots with burdock puree and herbs coming up F and I were bracing ourselves because it was our least favorite dish from our last dinner in September, but this time we really enjoyed it – the herbal flavor was dialed back from our initial experience.

Next Farm Spirit Non Alcoholic Housemade Beverage Pairing – Earl Grey Kombucha

Sunchoke (pureed flesh and crispy skins), watercress pudding and fermented sunflower seed puree was my least favorite of the night, if I had to choose from. I’ve enjoyed many a crispy sunchoke whether it be fried or baked and these didn’t measure up to the memory of those. I didn’t mind the watercress or the sunflower puree – but the sunchoke didn’t seem to get elevated in any way I could discern, which seemed like a missed opportunity when they were hitting it out of the ballpark with all the other dishes.

Wild winter shroom, parsnip puree, turnip rapini, black garlic, and texture of roots

The most pretty beverage of the evening, Lingonberry Sage Rejuvelac

At first, F saw how the little bruschetta like next course featuring pickled red onion and mustard seed sounded plain, and that as a non-onion lover he wouldn’t enjoy it. Thankfully, when we actually tried the course of Tim’s Volkornbrot with puree of filbers soured in rejuvelac, pickled red onion, and mustard seed, my hunch that Chef Tim’s homemade Volkornbrot bread would easily be able to stand up to such strong sounding flavors proved to be right. If I had to go on a diet of just bread and water, I would definitely pick Volkornbrot because it’s so hearty and filling packed with grains and seeds that’s healthy but also packed with chewy texture and flavors. If you haven’t had it before, I recommend visiting one of my favorite artisan bakeries in town, Fressen that specializes in German style bread. Anyway, when it comes to vegan bread though Tim’s Volkornbrot is the best vegan bread period I’ve ever had.
 

Now we are getting to the last and final home stretch, the 2 dessert courses, and the final housemade beverage pairing of Sarsaparilla Kefir

Fred’s favorite dessert of the two dessert courses was this Chewy and soft apple with chestnut and rosemary

However I throw my vote to possibly the healthiest dessert I’ve ever enjoyed, the Pumpkin seed ice cream, butternut, caramel, pumpkin seed milk, and granola

At the end of the meal, Chef Ricardo takes your order for final beverage service to end the meal (included with the meal so regardless of whether you had any wine or housemade beverage pairing). Thoughtfully, you get 4 choices, 2 coffees (caffeinated and decaffeinated, and you can get evaporated cane juice and/or hazelnut milk) or 2 teas (I went with the oolong here).

And sweetly, at the end they send you home with a little baked good to go that you can enjoy while thinking back on your wonderful meal during breakfast the next morning

If you’re married, do you celebrate your dating anniversary? And whether you are independent or partnered, do any of the courses we had that night call out to you that you’d want to try?