Both of these stuffed lettuce leaves, plump with sweetbreads,
seem so innocent in their bath of chicken broth. You'd hardly
guess they're the subject of great debate. But when you're
creating a dinner to present at the James Beard House in New
York City, you need to find out for sure: Is the dumpling
with the creamy filling better than the one with the spicy
center? The general consensus among the guinea pigs assembled
this evening in early September to taste-test the James Beard
meal is that the creamy one is superior. "I'm glad," said
Cathy Whims, co-owner and chef of Genoa. "The creamy one is
more authentic."
The Oct. 2 event at the Beard House, a traditional Ligurian
meal in honor of Christopher Columbus, Genoa's native son,
went off without a hitch. An Italian gentleman saw the centerpiece
display of cappon magro, a colorful salad of eight layers
of seafood, and exclaimed, "I want to meet the Italians
in the kitchen." (He was equally delighted to discover there
were no paesani responsible.) It's a national coming
out of sorts for the Genoa gang, and the symbolism isn't
lost on them. James Beard was a Reed College student who
moved from his beloved Portland to New York and made a name
for himself by promoting honest regional cuisine and inspiring
the nation to follow suit. Genoa, created with the sweat
and passion of Reedies, was the first restaurant in the
city to offer a fine regional Northern Italian menu, and
all you need to do is read this guide to see how many restaurants
in Portland pattern themselves similarly. The invitation
to show their stuff in New York is as close as Genoa will
get to a bravo from the late Beard the Great, and it was
their opportunity to follow his footsteps once again.
In the past 28 years, very little has changed at Genoa,
except its owners. Michael Vidor, the creative bon vivant
who opened L'Auberge, was inspired by his travels in Italy
to recreate in Portland the comfortable, intimate restaurants
he discovered there. In 1971, the restaurant pioneer opened
Genoa in a little 1930s storefront that used to house a
barbershop, a neighborhood grill and a Mexican cafe.
Kerry DeBuse, then a mere 26 years old, was there from
the start. DeBuse is now a co-owner of Genoa, but he began
as a dishwasher at L'Auberge and moved over to Genoa to
be a waiter when Vidor (who has since relocated to Orcas
Island) opened it.
"Mike was a real visionary," says DeBuse. "An eccentric
genius." Vidor's true interest wasn't so much in owning
and running a restaurant, according to DeBuse, as in conceptualizing
it, attracting intelligent, creative people to work there
and kick-starting the buzz. In the beginning, to run the
show, Vidor reeled in a slew of Reedies turned on by the
idea of food as art.
Whims points to an oil painting on the wall of Genoa's
sitting room, done by Vidor's daughter Molly, a thriving
Portland artist. "We were all gestating at the same time,"
Whims says. To this day, DeBuse says the restaurant retains
that original value system--smart, inspired employees who
see the task of creating exceptional regional cuisine as
a call to arms. "I knew I was getting older when people
stopped asking me if I went to Reed," DeBuse jokes.
Around 1974, Vidor decided his baby could walk on its
own and sold the restaurant to then-manager and Reed grad
Chris Rocca and his wife, Grey Wolfe. During their tenure,
the tradition of a seven-course meal and a rotating menu
every two weeks continued. They put an Oregon wine on the
list. "No one had done that before," says DeBuse. And they
put a focus on the business end of things.
In 1981, Amelia Hard, a waiter at Genoa, and her husband,
Fred Hard, a jazz musician and former professor at Reed,
bought the restaurant from Rocca and Wolfe. It was around
1985 that Cathy Whims, now 42, joined Genoa. Whims moved
to Portland in 1979 and had been working at Produce Row
Cafe, dreaming of the day she could stop making sandwiches
and start making gnocchi. She would save up her money to
eat at Genoa (back then the prix fixe meal was a
whopping $15), but she didn't think she'd ever have the
right stuff to make it to the kitchen, because she had never
gone to cooking school. Little did she know that hardly
anyone who worked at Genoa had a background in the culinary
arts--most were chosen for their passion.
Whims told a friend who knew Amelia Hard about her longing,
and pretty soon she got a call asking her to apply. She
got the job. (The timing was perfect, because word around
Produce Row was that Whims was an awful sandwich maker.)
"I was so excited," Whims says. "I remember telling people,
'They even use Grand Marnier in their desserts!'"
The 1980s were an important period in Genoa's development.
Italian cooking was just becoming popular, and cookbooks
were growing more accessible--often the Genoa crew had to
try to translate from the loose collection of recipes they
had gathered over the years. The use of local produce flourished,
and the breadth of its availability increased. Genoa was
the first restaurant in Portland to use porcini mushrooms,
according to DeBuse. Local mushroom purveyor Lars Norgren
sold the first batch he found to Amelia Hard for Genoa's
15th-anniversary menu (she stuffed quail with the porcini
and served them over polenta). Genoa was also one of the
first restaurants to have local growers supply it with greens.
Prior to the mid-1980s, Genoa had to grow its own basil,
because you couldn't buy it anywhere. "I remember the first
time I was able to buy Italian parsley in a store here,"
says Whims.
After 10 years at Genoa, Amelia and Fred Hard were ready
to move on. They offered to sell the restaurant to senior
employees who had seven or more years under their belt.
Four stepped forward to buy the place, among them DeBuse
and Whims. Since that time, one of the four has died and
another decided she wanted to pursue her own small business,
although she still does some cooking for the restaurant.
Sure, some things have changed at Genoa. The seven-course
dinner for $7 that was offered when it opened doesn't exist
anymore (it's now $60). The kitchen serves smaller portions,
because modern eaters can't make it through the larger servings
of old. The cooks use more olive oil instead of cream and
butter, because present-day diners can't handle food that
rich. And the restaurant added a sitting room in 1986.
DeBuse and Whims officially bought the building three years
ago and now have room to expand if they want to. They've
thrown around the idea of running a cafe out of the extra
space or opening up a cooking school, and they've even discussed
transforming the space into a private dining room. "The
restaurant's never made a lot of money for anyone," says
DeBuse. "There's never been a strong focus on profit." Whatever
path they choose, they want to make sure it doesn't take
away from the strong Genoa tradition.
"Change happens here glacially," says Whims.
"But it does happen," adds DeBuse.
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Willamette Week | originally
published October 13,
1999
|
