PLATE PARADE

Think of a balmy azure evening in the North Park Blocks, bocce ball in full swing on the grassy esplanade across from the restaurant, with aficionados commenting from benches. Think of sitting at a pleasant table tucked on a quiet sidewalk outside the restaurant's entrance within view of the gleaming copper-colored bar inside. Then think of a parade of hot and cold small plates coming to you.

Park Kitchen stakes out a tiny bit of nirvana just far enough away from busier avenues to recall a charming spot at the edge of a European city. The rolling garage-door entrance opens the restaurant to the street, but there's not a lot of foot traffic here, and you feel undisturbed, even a little pampered, at this lively new bistro.

Owner Scott Dolich joins the group of young Portland chefs who have caught the scent of the current dining scene: a demand for carefully crafted, freshly turned informal dishes, combining lively, unexpected flavors that grab you without overwhelming. It's a style that marries comfort with spirited inventiveness, where traditional ingredients are inflected just enough to show that the chef knows how to enhance nature artfully.

On the Park Kitchen's menu, there are three times as many hot and cold small plates as entrees--which are called "large plates"--and this requires mixing and matching as you order. The choices reflect a number of cultures, but the preparation and ingredients aren't slavishly traditional. So sweetly fresh anchovy filets ($6.50) are marinated with curls of preserved lemons and fennel and mesclun--slightly Italian but not excessively so. A sublimely fresh salmon-and-green garlic terrine is offset with an overly sweet tomato marmalade--slightly French but not genuinely so. A pasta ($7.50) arrives with chorizo, hazelnut pesto and olives--again Italian, but with flavors of Spain and Oregon as well.

Park Kitchen's signature dish is a dynamite starter: batter-fried green beans with ham and tarragon ($7). Long green beans and prosciuttino are enveloped in a filigree of tempura batter, then jammed into a paper cone cradled in a tall glass, the way snappy restaurants might serve French fries. But these beans offer just enough virtue to offset the frying, and the crunch is so addictive you'll want to order this dish every time you come here.

Another fine appetizer, a cluster of lightly battered golf ball-sized salt cod fritters ($7), rewards with molten, creamy, steamy interiors; the fritters are good by themselves, though the accompanying vinegar dip is classic. A mix of albacore tuna with black olives, tomatoes and farm-fresh eggs ($8.50) offers a turn on the classic niçoise; the tuna is meltingly soft. An example of the kitchen's way with soup is the lovely chilled cucumber soup ($6.50), spiked with almonds and floating a few ribbons of smoked salmon--though my dining partner smartly ventured that a few salmon eggs would look prettier and lend a certain panache.

Two entrees are standouts. Barbecued spare ribs ($16.50) sound like a winter dish, but these tender, not excessively spicy numbers are surrounded by warm, fresh cherries; someone's thinking here. Chard and bacon make an appearance on the plate but are prepared au gratin for an unusual side dish--like soul food but elevated just enough to reveal the chef's inventiveness.

In the summer, there are times when you want lots of salad, but not something too simple and obvious. Here's where Dolich's succulent warm duck salad ($18.50) with hazelnuts and a dab of black currants is an inspired touch. The duck comes in two modes, rare magret (breast) and crackly confit (leg), and sensuously spills over the greens, mixing with the light vinaigrette.

A couple of other dishes are pleasant: A slab of grilled salmon bathes in "tomato water" and sits atop a cake of chickpeas. And a tagine, a Moroccan-inspired stew of tender, local lamb with its traditional partner of couscous, is served in a village-style terra-cotta pot, but this semolina is laced pungently with lemon.

Pastry chef Ellen McFarland earns her stripes. She offers a Bundt cake of sinisterly dark chocolate with an ambrosial praline jam on the side ($6.50), rich and yet not-too-sweet for the heat. For lighter tastes there's a pale chilled peach soup ($6.50), accents of lavender permeating what is a kind of fruit bisque, a cluster of blueberries floating atop like so many indigo nuggets.

McFarland's masterpiece is a warm nectarine-and-almond strudel ($6.50), tissue-paper thin and flaky, almost as if it were assembled with phyllo, and served with an intensely flavored ice cream made from the fruit and its pit. I don't know what Jewish housewives in 19th-century Budapest would have thought of this strudel (the word is German for "whirlpool"), but I know it sent me happily eddying off into the late August evening.

422 NW 8th Ave.

223-7275

7-10 am Tuesday-Friday, 11:30 am-
2 pm and 5:30-10 pm Tuesday-Saturday, 9:30 am-2:30 pm Saturday-Sunday.

Credit cards accepted.
Children welcome but seldom seen.
$$ Moderate.

Picks: Batter-fried green beans and ham, salt cod fritters, salmon-and-green garlic terrine, spare ribs with cherries, warm duck salad, nectarine-and-almond strudel.

Nice touch: In summer, a wide garage door opens the entire restaurant to the street.

WWeek 2015