Bar Guide 2014: Tannery Bar

TANNERY BAR

Tannery Bar is a cozy cocktail spot in a brick-walled bunker along the whizzing thoroughfare of East Burnside Street, huddled between a dormant volcano and a valley that descends into a freeway. 

A bit over a year into its life, Tannery Bar remains a secret prized by those few who know it well. Though it stocks $3 Rainier and $2 Old German for neighborhood swillers, and craft brews for less casual beer drinkers, the bar operates as a sort of luxury boutique of out-of-the-way comforts. Couples—almost always couples—descend on the place from parts unknown to order a luxuriantly complex pennyroyal cocktail ($13) nowhere near as toxic as its namesake, with Highland Park 12-year scotch matched against a sweet-bitter-tart blend of Combier orange liqueur, maple syrup, bitters and citrus. They get the ridiculously rich Monte Cristo sandwich ($12) with its little bowl of marionberry jam, a selection of cured ham secured from Iowa or Spain ($16), or a simple oiled pasta with cured Italian pork cheeks ($13).

One suspects, though it can't be verified, that the couples all met each other here on first dates. The cozy room has record players in the back and a shelf of LPs, a rug on the floor and an occasional visiting dog who lounges there. Each comfort, from drink to cheese plate, is hand-prepared in full view. It is a curated world of rustic domesticity that one visits as if on honeymoon at a ski cabin. But it's accessible by being just a short hop down the road, in a foreign neighborhood where you will see no one you know. Which is to say, it is Portland's most perfect first-date bar.

"Can we go," your girlfriend or boyfriend will ask you later, "to the place where we first met?"

  1. Happy hour: 4-6 pm Monday-Saturday. $1 off Rainier, select drafts and house wine. Food specials.
GO:
Tannery Bar, 5425 E Burnside St., 236-3610, tannerybarpdx.com. 4 pm–1 am Monday–Saturday.


WWeek 2015

Matthew Korfhage

Matthew Korfhage has lived in St. Louis, Chicago, Munich and Bordeaux, but comes from Portland, where he makes guides to the city and writes about food, booze and books. He likes the Oxford comma but can't use it in the newspaper.

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