ANOTHER FRENCH RESTAURANT! Anthony
Demes, whose modern French bistro, Couvron, wowed diners first in
Portland and then, after a cross-country move, in Manhattan, has applied
for a liquor license for the former Mangia Pizza building at 1937 NW
23rd Place. The restaurant, Noisette, will be yet another addition to
the city’s recent crop of French restaurants (see “Dinner in Lyon’s
Den,” page 25). Enough! Our food reviewers’ arteries can’t take any more
punishment.
BOW, OUT: The second-most prominent musician in the Oregon Symphony, the excellent concertmaster Jun Iwasaki, is leaving to join the Nashville Symphony,
which a few years ago snapped up the Eugene Symphony’s promising young
conductor, Giancarlo Guerrero. Symphony president Elaine Calder’s press
release pointedly noted Nashville’s advantages: an active recording
program, a bigger budget (and probably higher musicians’ pay), and a
sparkling new concert hall. The hall far surpasses the Oregon Symphony’s
home: an acoustically hopeless converted 1928 vaudeville theater. The
implicit message: If we want to hold on to the fine musicians who
made the orchestra’s recent Carnegie Hall triumph possible, the symphony
will need more money, and probably a new home.
RAISING THE BAR: Clyde Common at the Ace Hotel has been nominated as one of the best hotel bars in the world in
the 2011 Spirited Awards. The awards are part of Tales of the Cocktail,
the bartending industry’s incredibly drunken annual summer camp in New
Orleans, and are kind of a big deal. Clyde has been nominated in the
“World’s Best Hotel Bar” category alongside Artesian at the Langham in
London, Clive’s Classic Lounge at Chateau Victoria Hotel in Victoria,
B.C., and the Savoy in London. “It was a huge surprise and a tremendous
honor for all of us,” Clyde Common bar manager Jeffrey Morgenthaler told WW.
“We have such an amazing staff behind the bar at Clyde, and I think
this helps validate—in some small way—everything that they’ve done to
help the bar grow over the past couple of years.”
RIP CITY ROCKERS: After months of careful preparation and Kickstarter fundraising, And And And’s Rigsketball Tournament begins this week.
To recap: The first round of the basketball tournament (matches are
played on the hoop affixed to And And And’s van) features 32 bands
facing off at a variety of odd locations (the Animal Eyes-vs.-Sean Flinn
and the Royal We contest, for example, takes place Wednesday “at The
Fred Myers [sic] parking lot on 39th and Hawthorn [sic] till we get kicked out and then over to Colonel Sanders [sic] park”). There are some notable athlete-musicians playing ball—Laura Gibson and Dirty Mittens’ Patrick Griffin both played in school; Typhoon
has a very tall drummer—but it’s the trash-talking that should take
center stage. See wweek.com for game times, or Rigsketball 2011 on
Kickstarter for detailed information.
