We had a recent conversation spurred by Jenise, talking about fine dining and "pretentious" dining being equated.
Obviously great fine dining/haute cuisine shouldn't be pretentious, just very particular. Fortunately there is a category of restaurant that does a "Casual Fine Dining"...where you get a casual but chic ambience along with some seriously good food done well.
That's the kind of place Radar is. It's run by a young couple (Lilly, front and beverage program; her husband is the chef) and the place is casual, the food is excellent, and the beverage program is a lovely execution-in-miniature that shows incredible subtle knowledge.
So I wrote an article about the experience.
Here's the foodie part:
This is a great restaurant, especially for twosomes with its kitchen-bar seating and two-top tables aligning the wall. That’s good, because the small plates/large plates menu encourages a wide range of nibbling, working your way down the list from one delicious creation to another.
A nice touch which eliminates unnecessary fuss and work is the ‘full service placemat’ with the foods listed in the middle, an irresistible list of cocktail specials on one side and the amazingly versatile short list on the other side.
The cuisine style ranges from Spanish to French to Italian to Portugese to Down Home Southern, with every dish executed with flawless precision to showcase each of the ingredients, which you can watch in the open kitchen. There’s no superfluity in this cuisine: each element (and there are some lovely unexpected touches) is there for a particular reason that is immediately obvious to the palate.
We sampled the piquant puffed and powdered garbanzos as we sipped and perused, then cleaned plates, in succession on the tempura-fried cauliflower; pork shoulder on a bed of crispy outside/creamy inside grits (!); salt cod and potato brandade croquettes in a piquillo sauce; one of the finest examples possible of a bluefish paté plate (Radar is very picky about their seafood sources and this shows it; the bluefish reveals all its good characteristics and none of the oily bad ones from mishandling, and the garnish of pickled rhubarb completes the succulent variety of the dish); and a gorgeous and tasty down-home-French plate of grilled asparagus, wafer thin slices of cheese, with Dijon vinaigrette and a perfectly poached egg on the top ready to ooze all over the plate when the fork hit it.
It goes on a bit, mostly about the beverage/cocktail part, so if you want to read the whole thing, http://www.examiner.com/list/radar-love-and-the-european-union
So if you're in or around Portland, go. If you're not, when you visit this would be a great place for a superb meal experience in a convivial place that knows how to do both food and wine. It actually reminded me a bit of L'Atelier du Joel Robuchon, his place on the Left Bank. FIne dining without any fuss.