Skip to main contentEven destination restaurants benefit from their proximity to other seductive attractions. Tina's and the Joel Palmer House (in Dundee and Dayton, respectively) have Yamhill County vineyards and wineries just down the road. The Silver Grille, a cheerful, relatively new restaurant in Silverton, has the recently opened Oregon Garden for a neighbor, just a seed's throw away. Now that the Gordon House, Oregon's only Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home, has been moved from Wilsonville to the Oregon Garden and is set to open March 2, there's all the more reason to make the Silver Grille a place to warm yourself after strolling the garden paths. If that weren't enough, Silverton is just south of Mount Angel, whose abbey, with its handsome grounds, stunning buildings and summer concerts, beckons many a day-tripper from Portland. And if you take the back roads out, via Canby and Aurora, you'll pass some of Oregon's most fertile farms, many of which sell glorious market produce from late spring on.
The Silver Grille lives around the corner from a 1901 bank and a store that advertises "Scrapbooking and Mementos." It wouldn't surprise you to see a horse pull up outside and stick its head in a feed pail. There's a warm, country ambience to the restaurant, with touches of attractive sophistication: coat hooks in the wainscoting, deep red grass-cloth wallpaper, a blackboard full of wine choices and specials and, at the entrance, shelves and shelves of carefully selected wines which you can have with your meal for retail price plus an astonishingly reasonable $3 corkage fee. Chef and owner Jeff Nizlek not only brings in the produce of small farmers, growers and foragers from the surrounding Willamette Valley farmland (my favorite name of one of his suppliers is "Truffle Zone"), but he works closely with many valley winemakers, and though his wines include excellent Italian and French bottles, he mostly carries choice Oregon pinots.
The Silver Grille's staff is wonderfully cordial and seems genuinely glad you've come. That note is sustained throughout the meal, with a service that is instinctively attentive, never intrusive, and extremely knowledgeable. The service carries through to the meal itself, imparting a deserved confidence in the kitchen.
The menu, which can change daily or weekly according to the availability of ingredients, includes local meats matched with local vegetables. Though Nizlek's cooking is less adventurous than that of Greg Higgins, the Silver Grille has the same dedication to sustainable agriculture.
The soups are outstanding: I've had a purée of leeks, Yukon gold potatoes and white truffle oil ($3.50 cup, $6 bowl) on two occasions. The first version, when the weather was severely cold, was deep, spicy, rich and thick, the perfect chill-breaker after a bracing ride through the valley meadows; the second, when the weather was milder, came out considerably lighter, but with the same flavors and heady, aromatic perfume. The best appetizer is strips of smoked salmon wrapped around a mound of exquisite bay shrimp ($8); the salmon is chilled and has a satiny patina, silken smooth in texture and briny to the taste. Peppery arugula lies across the surface. A smoky rabbit terrine ($9) is quite satisfying, with a creamy sauce splashed on the plate and a small salad of field Mizuna and arugula scattered alongside, though the greens were a bit overdressed. Among the hot starters is an unusual "gratin" of steamed clams ($7.50), minced with spinach and local hazelnuts and then replaced in the small shells and baked, a sort of Oregon version of Clams Casino.
Silver Grille's ingredients are superb. If I have any complaint, it's the restaurant's inclination to over-sauce. The reductions are fine, intense and flavorful, indicating labor and patience at the burner. But a beautifully cooked filet ($22) and its accompanying vegetables (carrots and snow peas) tend to be masked both visually and in flavor by the abundance of saucing. One dish where this doesn't matter--in fact, it seems seasonally appropriate--is a delicious lamb stew ($19), which comes with gremolata, the garnish of parsley, grated lemon peel and garlic that lends a piquancy and pungency to the tender meat. The stew comes with an unusual pilaf of wheat berries, the whole, unprocessed kernels bursting in the mouth with a nutty crunch and in their chewiness contrasting with the unctuous, rich sauce. Another splendid entree is the tournedo (or steak) of duck ($21) plus a leg confit, a double-duck dish that's meaty and rich, loaded with garlic, and made sprightly with an infusion of balsamico. It comes with "melting potatoes," which are first sautéed and then cooked in the "jus" until they just begin to run into it.
The restaurant nicely under-poaches a moist slab of Chinook ($18), and streaks it with a light hollandaise and the generously ubiquitous truffle oil; the most unusual aspect of this plate is an accompanying Chinese black rice, shorter-grained and milder than wild rice; the ensemble is pure Euro-Pac Rim globalization. The one entree that lacks character is a "saltimbocca" of shrimp wrapped in thinly sliced smoked duck breast. Normally the term refers to a Roman specialty of veal topped with a slice of prosciutto, sautéed in butter and braised in white wine. The translation to sea-and-barn is clever, but the shrimp are a bit too salty, the risotto is dull, and once again the mélange gets doused with a concealing brown sauce. I'd have liked the skewered shrimp and magret on their own, which would give the complementary flavors a chance to stand out more dramatically.
A good ending for this generally filling meal is a dome of chocolate mousse ($6) and Oregon chestnuts. This is post-adolescent decadence, but it will remind you of nothing so much as a giant Mallomar that's matured. The best dessert, through, is the intense and puckering Meyer lemon tart ($6) that sits atop a compote of Oregon berries. Have it now to revive summer memories, and let the contrast of sharp citrus and sun-sweet berries linger in the mouth during the drive home.
206 E Main St., Silverton (503) 873-4035 4-9 pm Wednesday- Sunday. Credit cards accepted. Children welcome. Moderate- Expensive $$-$$$
: Soups, house-smoked salmon stuffed with bay shrimp, lamb stew, tournedo of duck, Meyer lemon tart.
: Well-chosen wine selection on shelves, retail price plus $3 corkage fee.
879 W Main St., Silverton, (503) 874-8264.
WWeek 2015