It’s a Sunday night just on the heels of its grand opening, and already Aomori—West Bayside’s elegant-yet-cozy spot at the base of the spiffy Armature building—feels like it’s been a Portland institution for ages. In part that’s because the newcomer is an izakaya—a Japanese neighborhood gastropub. (Think: Japan’s food-forward answer to Cheers.) But Aomori also has a major leg up in the community-bona fides department: The operation isa labor-of-love collaboration between family and friends: Reo Miyake; his father, pioneering sushi chef Masa Miyake; his mother, Chieko Miyake; and Reo’s girlfriend Helen Carter. Meanwhile, pastry chef Yumiko Kobayashi is a longtime close friend of the entire family. And nearly the entire rest of the staff have previously worked with Masa, Reo, and Helen at the two award-winning Portland restaurants Masa created—Miyake and Pai Men Miyake—which he sold before announcing a short-lived retirement.
“We’re all friends, and hang out on our days off,” says Reo. “So, everyone on staff was already dialed into working together by the time we opened the doors.” And let’s talk about those doors for a moment—the ones framing the marumado traditional circular windows, often found in temples, teahouses, and old homes in Japan. They lead into a warmly lit room lined in exquisite cherry carpentry by Woodhull, and custom-made wooden furnishings bearing meticulous joinery. It was a vision that first began percolating when Reo and Helen were living in Japan together. “We fell in love with izakaya culture there,” recalls Reo. “They’re the kind of inexpensive neighborhood places you walk into and end up laughing with strangers and continuously ordering dishes and sakes. They’ve got a terrific sense of community, and we wanted to bring that to Portland.”
And bring it they have—with an eye for culinary detail that Masa oversees in the kitchen. “When Helen and I were envisioning the restaurant, we thought it would be something that would complement the other two restaurants my dad had brought to Portland,” he explains. “He was getting bored after retirement—it was time for him to do something again.”
Now, together they create (and regularly recreate) the menu of small plates that exemplify the izakaya experience, occasionally spun with Masa’s Japanese-meets-European signature. That’s particularly true with sushi (the daily carpaccio is a constantly rotating local fish sliced thin and swept with olive oil, shiso, and capers; and the temaki hand rolls—crispy nori filled with the likes of yellowtail, pickled jalapeno, and truffle oil). More traditional yet no less addictive is the collection of small and simple veggie dishes. (The Japanese-style potato salad may sound ho-hum, but I dare you to try and stop digging in for more of its smooth, sweet-and-sour creaminess.) The medium-sized hot sharing plates—like slow-cooked chicken with pickled cucumbers and walnut miso—all bend toward unusually authentic dishes. “They’re what my mom would cook for me growing up,” confirms Reo.
Speaking of whom, she’s the one in charge of curating the Japanese convenience market—an offshoot of the restaurant next door. “Mom chooses all of the authentic retail items and homemade specialty snacks,” he says—everything from Japanese egg salad sandwiches to rice balls and Ogawa Coffee, the Kyoto-based company known for its meticulously roasted beans and extremely precise pour-over process. “She’s specially trained as their barista,” says Reo. “She’s also my dad’s harshest food critic in the restaurant.”
Keeping that high-quality affordable is crucial to the magic here, insists Reo. Particularly in the current economy. But it’s also built into a good izakaya’s DNA. Here, it’s what keeps the remarkably eclectic, multigenerational, and multicultural crowd casually ordering plate after plate of dishes they’ve never tried (bluefin tuna spine, anyone?) and chatting with strangers over hyper-chilled martinis garnished with, say, pickled young ginger sprouts. “People who’ve never met before will talk and hang out,” says Reo, especially at the communal table, which sits beneath Aomori’s back wall of traditional red lanterns, “and sometimes even start sharing their meals.” ■
