Erizo

Erizo is an American restaurant in Portland, Oregon, offering a multi-course live-fire tasting menu three nights a week.

We focus on seafood from sustainable sources from the Pacific Coast, including bycatch and invasive species. Our chefs are licensed to fish commercially, which allows them to go even deeper into the feeders of ingredients the coast has to offer. Most of our menu is harvested by our chefs or purchased directly from fishermen.

We prefer to serve our ingredients simply. relying on an extensive pantry of fermented and canned ingredients made in house to create complex and incendiary ideas.

The tasting menu showcases rare and valuable ingredients, often accompanied by an appealing story. For example, cloudberries are sourced from a Swedish island above the Arctic Circle. Wagyu beef is raised in the Australian outback by a Japanese cowboy. Bluefin tuna is caught with nets originally designed by Phoenicians off the coast of Spain. But the backstory of these luxurious ingredients sometimes seems like an attempt to justify the price-or make you feel better about consuming an endangered product.

In general, however, the restaurant’s concept involves unlocking the potential of those fish and shellfish that guests are not yet accustomed to eating.

Average dinner cost per person: $125

Cuisine: Author’s Cuisine