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"This isn't L.A." declaims a
svelte, moneyed silver fox at the bar. "Nobody's gonna give you Portland
in L.A." His date, who is of surgically indeterminate age and
culturally indeterminate name, orders dry arugula and cauliflower
off-menu. Amid the West End's new cluster of boutiques and boutique
hotels, the retro-luxe stylings of Jackknife (614 SW 11th Ave., 384-2347, jackknifepdx.com),
the Sentinel's new hotel bar by the owners of Dig a Pony and Bye and
Bye, seem patently designed for the city-hopping cool chasers of Los
Angeles, New York and San Francisco. On weekends the bar brims with the
tunnel people of Beaverton, but on a recent Sunday the bar offered an
odd opportunity to view tourists as if they were animals in a zoo.
Behold the Angeleno with the orange beanie, tortoise-shell glasses, Die
Antwoord haircut and walrus mustache, his pressed plaid shirt buttoned
up to his Adam's apple. See, in her unnatural environment, the SoCal
metalhead with Enemy Mine side-face ink to complement her eyebrow
tattoos. Look out behind her for a man in full London club camo gear
and a backward red baseball cap. There is never a dull moment. And the
seats are quite comfortable at the cosmopolitan shitshow, with a
fireplace hearth, a lovely marble bar that extends for miles, an ornate
intra-building skylight and a party lounge in the back. The well drinks
are a reasonable $5, while anyone ambitious with mid-to-upper-shelf
calls will pay handsomely for their ambition. The snack menu is a polite
pleasantry. And the Bonnie Parker cocktail ($10), meanwhile, is one of
the best I've had in town, a balanced, comfortingly sweet, copper-cupped
blend of bourbon, pecan and maple honey that actually made me gasp audibly on
the first sip. As the night brings more out-of-towners, a group of
hometown Portlanders steps up to the bar to pay. "Be careful," one of
them tells us upon leaving. "It's getting squirrelly in here."
WWeek 2015