Into The Woods

[October 10th, 2007]

Cory Schreiber has left the building.

When Wildwood opened in May 1994, it marked a moment when a native Oregonian who had worked at top restaurants throughout the country came home and applied his talent to the raw ingredients of the Pacific Northwest. Wildwood was a class act from the beginning: Schreiber’s generous, full-flavored cuisine earned the restaurant widespread accolades, and he was honored with a James Beard Award for best chef in the region in 1998.

In 2002, Schreiber lost his ownership stake in Wildwood, though he stayed on as manager. Now, as of June ’07, the restaurant has entered a new phase without the founder whose personality and vision had defined it from the start. “My name is pretty much side by side with the Wildwood name, and it’s hard to separate the two,” Schreiber told me last week in an interview. “But my time was up. They needed to get on with it without me.”

Easier said than done. At a chain restaurant, the comings and goings of individuals don’t matter all that much. Remaking a signature restaurant like Wildwood is a much trickier task.

Still, it’s not as if they’re starting from scratch. Executive chef Dustin Clark was mentored by Schreiber and has worked at the restaurant for a decade. Manager Hal Finkelstein still mans the door with warm professionalism, and service remains among the most polished in town. On several visits late this summer the restaurant was packed; though I didn’t do a scientific survey, it seemed from overheard comments that many in the crowd were out-of-towners—no wonder, considering Wildwood has garnered so much good press over the years.

Meals begin, as always, with the restaurant’s admirable whole-wheat levain. Among starters, the skillet-roasted mussels ($14), which have been on the menu since day one, were as good as ever, contributing their own juices to a balanced broth flavored with garlic, lemon, saffron and the unexpected sweetness of sun-dried tomatoes.

However, grilled treviso (a green similar to radicchio, $9), with red wine-braised bacon and a fried duck egg, had an odd, split personality—some spoonfuls of the soupy brown sauce tasted watery, while others packed a sinus-clearing punch of vinegar. A small romaine salad (aggressively priced at $10) would have been perfect with just its creamy-cheesy Caesar dressing and croutons; why add vinegary pickled onions and cornichons, plus extra salt in the form of capers? An heirloom tomato salad featured far more lettuce than tomato ($10).

Schreiber was one of the first chefs to embrace local farmers, sitting down with them in winter to choose which vegetables they’d plant for him come spring. Recent menus feel like an up-to-the-minute catalog of farmers market finds, but even with apparently complementary seasonal ingredients, combinations just don’t hang together. A main course of pan-roasted Muscovy duck ($26) was served with an ill-advised variation on the Tuscan tomato and bread salad, panzanella, with blobs of cooked peach substituting for the tomato; crushed blackberries turned the whole platter, including a side of spinach, an unappetizing purple-brown. Another version of duck—inexplicably, some slices were tender, others tough—was piled on a pseudo-Italian inspiration called risotto carbonara, basically an excuse for overcooking rice and doctoring it up with cheese and bacon ($26).

Despite top-notch ingredients, few dishes found the synergy between finesse and abundance that typified Schreiber’s cooking. A lumberjack-sized, pasture-raised ribeye steak ($34) from John Day’s Strawberry Mountain Beef, cooked expertly medium rare, should have been brilliant, yet the meat’s texture was oddly mushy, probably from overmarinating in red wine. Pan-seared Alaskan halibut ($28) was also perfectly cooked, then served on a stolid lump of polenta studded with corn kernels, over a characterless hollandaise.

The bar menu is still a good bet, especially two longtime offerings: pizza (toppings change, $13) and the Dungeness crab and potato cake ($12). A newer item, the house-cured pastrami sandwich ($12), rivals Higgins’ for its smoky-salty beef, housemade sauerkraut and melted cheddar blanket. The wine list remains an astute tour of the Pacific Northwest with what seem like a few more bottlings from other regions (and countries) tossed into the mix than in days past, and beer lovers will be pleased with the imaginative and wide-ranging selection.

Desserts (all $7) continue to be a Wildwood strength under pastry chef Michelle Vernier. A creamy chocolate-espresso torta melded chocolate’s deep flavors with a simultaneously refreshing and intense espresso granita. Summer huckleberry compote sparkled with lemon-buttermilk panna cotta and fennel shortbread. An heirloom apple turnover in puff pastry shared the plate happily with caramel apple ice cream, apple-cider sorbet, vanilla crème anglaise and a sprinkling of the best darned caramel corn—a buttery, crunchy marvel with hazelnuts—I’ve ever had. They should sell it by the bagful.

“A restaurant is a life form that fills a space,” Schreiber told me. “It is driven by the energy of the individual in charge, and when you take that person out, you don’t know where it’ll go.”

Right now, Wildwood, named for the path that winds through Forest Park, is looking for the direction that will keep it relevant to Portland’s dining scene. Whether the restaurant will blaze that new trail is an open question.