Bar Nouveau Is a Scrappy Send-Up to French Cookbook Cuisine

"Bar Nouveau might change that. Just off North Lombard, it's housed inside a refurbished 1940s building called Leavitt Station, a setting that matches the restaurant's avowedly midcentury sensibility. There are no Resys to reserve, no QR codes. You book by the increasingly retro medium of text message. Chef Althea Grey Potter cooks French food without Francophile reserve. Her plates arrive like something from Julia Child or Alice Waters, whose cookbooks adorn the entryway. A decadent bouffant of chicken liver mousse, heaped like ruffled cupcake frosting atop sablé cookies, is fit for an Eisenhower-era Gourmet cover. Fried olives present like a French Scotch egg, wrapped in pâté, stuffed with melty Cantal Jeune, and served over honey mustard."

"The restaurant insists that cherry-picked bits of the past belong in the present, and it revels in the contradictions therein. It's not a time machine but an ode to delicious kitsch with enough soul to be transportive if you let it."

"Originally from New England, Grey Potter has grown a following across the better part of the past decade. She worked alongside Jason French at Ned Ludd (RIP), a wood-fired restaurant once described as "a museum of farm-to-table clichés," and later opened Oui! Wine Bar (a 2018 PoMo Best New Restaurant) on SE Division. At Oui!, and then at a series of pop-ups, she incubated and refined what's become her vernacular cuisine at Bar Nouveau: inspired, maximalist efforts that teeter excitingly on the edge of gluttony, like that delightfully froufrou liver mousse, grandiose devi"

St. Johns functions as a distinct, self-contained Portland neighborhood with a modest dining reputation despite notable local spots. Bar Nouveau sits just off North Lombard in a refurbished 1940s Leavitt Station building and embraces a midcentury aesthetic and retro habits like text-only reservations. Chef Althea Grey Potter serves French-influenced, maximalist plates that blend Julia Child–style generosity with Alice Waters' sensibility, including ornate chicken liver mousse and fried olives in pâté with Cantal Jeune. The restaurant mixes nostalgic kitsch and sincere flavor. Grey Potter's background includes Ned Ludd, Oui! Wine Bar, and a decade of pop-ups that refined her vernacular cuisine.

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