Departure Restaurant and Lounge, or simply Departure, is an Asian restaurant and bar in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

, United States. The restaurant operates on the fifteenth floor of The Nines.

Description

Departure is an Asian restaurant and bar on the fifteenth floor of The Nines, a hotel in downtown Portland's

Meier & Frank Building The Meier & Frank Building is a fifteen-story, glazed terra cotta building located in downtown Portland, Oregon, across from the northeast corner of Pioneer Courthouse Square. The building is the former flagship store and headquarters building ...

. '' Portland Monthly'' describes the restaurant as "a lively hub for creative, ambitious pan-Asian cuisine, a spot where Oregon’s produce, meats, and seafood are transmuted into bold yet comforting dishes that sizzle and pop with the big, bright flavors of chile, lime, and ginger". The menu "encompasses China (spring rolls, siu mai, fried rice) Japan (edamame, sashimi, kushiyaki) and Korea (a good bibimbap, stirred table-side)", and offers vegetarian and vegan options. According to ''

The Oregonian ''The Oregonian'' is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 185 ...

'' Michael Russell, Departure has a "Miami vibe" and "Asian-influenced"

small plates Small plates is a manner of dining that became popular in US food service after 2000. ''Small plates'' may either refer to small dishes resembling appetizers which are ordered à la carte and often shared, such as tapas, or to the small Course (di ...

History

Gregory Gourdet Gregory Gourdet (born ) is an American chef, writer, restaurateur, and former finalist on the twelfth and seventeenth seasons of Bravo's American reality television series, ''Top Chef''. He is of Haitian descent. He is the owner of the restaur ...

began serving as chef in 2010, when the "astro-sleek" restaurant "was better known for its bridge-and-tunnel singles scene than for its eats". Departure closed temporarily during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, but reopened on August 13, 2020.

Reception

According to '' Portland Monthly'', "Visiting the restaurant, with its Vegas-style decks and unparalleled views of the city, is an expensive but giddy-making surprise: it's as if you went into a dressing room to try on a pair of gaudy Ed Hardy jeans and came out clad in an Armani suit." Michael Russell of ''The Oregonian'' wrote, "If you're interested in this kind of modern Asian fusion in Portland, you might be better off at Smallwares, Expatriate or The American Local, where the bill will be considerably lower. Then again, so will the view." Donald Olson of

Frommer's Frommer's is a travel guide book series created by Arthur Frommer in 1957. Frommer's has since expanded to include more than 350 guidebooks in 14 series, as well as other media including an eponymous radio show and a website. In 2017, the company ...

rated Departure two out of three stars, and wrote, "This rooftop bar and restaurant atop The Nines hotel in downtown Portland serves good food but also has a remarkable outdoor terrace, very unusual in Portland. People definitely get dressed up to make the scene here, and most of them are under 40–er, make that 30."

References

External links

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Departure Restaurant + Lounge
at Fodor's
Departure
at

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{{Restaurants in Portland, Oregon Asian restaurants in Portland, Oregon Southwest Portland, Oregon