Dining
fromEater Portland
1 week agoDessert Comes With Bonbons and a Romance Novel at Bar Nouveau
Bar Nouveau pairs maximalist, retro decor and whimsical service with generous, French-influenced dishes and inventive cocktails.
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.