Going Out No. 12: Tusk
Which is, in fact, open for business.
Welcome! This is the Going Out edition of Riley’s Recs, where I review a restaurant, bar, or activity here in Portland. Every Sunday, I also share Staying In recipe recommendations for your week. Don’t forget to check out pdxrecs.com for even more recommendations and follow RR on Instagram at @rileysrecs. Enjoy!
Meal: Happy Hour/Dinner
Price for two including tip: $99
To eat: hummus, falafel, labneh, flatbread (x2), rainbow carrots, and acorn squash
To drink: Contradiction and Saved by Zero
A couple of weeks ago, the Willamette Week reported that Tusk, the Mediterranean inspired restaurant on East Burnside, had closed.
The report came after a sign was taped to Tusk’s front door that read “Tusk is closed. For information, please contact Gary.”
When I first saw the Willamette Week headline, I was sad but unsurprised. Despite being named Portland Eater’s 2017 Restaurant of the Year, Tusk has faced its fair share of challenges. In 2020, executive chef Sam Smith (now at Yaowarat) and co-owner Luke Dirk (now at L’Echelle) left the business. And over the past few years, the restaurant’s new-ish parent company, Sortis Holdings (which rebranded to SoHi Brands), has been at the center of troubling news reports and lawsuits.
Sortis/SoHi is infamous for not paying rent or equipment leases, causing landlords to lock out tenants and force restaurant closures. These unsavory business practices have affected many of the group’s holdings, including Sizzle Pie, Ava Gene’s, Bamboo Sushi, See See Motor Coffee Co., and Tusk, most of which were acquired during COVID as a last-ditch rescue measure by restaurant owners at risk of bankruptcy.
It’s no surprise that restaurants have turned to big corporate investors like SoHi in the wake of the pandemic. Owners have long struggled to deal with the rising costs of labor, rent, and food. Just last week, Houston Blacklight (which I featured in Going Out No. 4 this past summer) announced its sudden closure along with the beloved coffee shop Jim and Patty’s.
But Tusk is not among this growing list of shuttered restaurants. Tusk is, in fact, very much open for business. Willamette Week published the article without confirming with staff or SoHi. If they had, they would have learned that Tusk’s team was awaiting a few deliveries and wanted to make sure they weren’t missed.
Willamette Week has since issued an apology, but the sloppy reporting sent Reddit into a tizzy and pissed off the chairman of SoHi who said, “More lies to cause us issues. I’m sick and tired of this city.”
To be fair, this city is sick and tired of SoHi Brands, but point made: with thin margins, frequent break-ins, and cut-throat reviews, it feels like it doesn’t take much to bring a restaurant down these days.
To combat the poor press, this week’s Going Out is a celebration of Tusk. Go to Tusk! Get a seat at the bar! Live it up!
When Tusk first opened in 2016, Portland Monthly’s restaurant critic Karen Brooks described it as a “shot of vitamin D, a breezy, glass-walled, feel-good-rocking California dream,” and “spiritually Middle Eastern, freethinking in form.”
With its pink neon signage, white furniture, and vegan-friendly menu, Tusk does feel like it could be in Palo Alto. It’s giving healthy chic.
The design does not come from California, however, but from Portland-based Jessica Helgerson Interiors (a worthy interior design Instagram follow). Her assignment was to depart from the traditional “woodsy” interior of many Portland restaurants, and deliver a bright, fresh party vibe. A picture of Keith Richards floating in a pool hangs over the bar and bleached wood dowels give the “sitting-outside-under-a-shady-arbor feeling.”
If you go, you will definitely get that “sitting-outside-under-a-shady-arbor feeling,” especially if you are sitting outside in their plant-filled, heated patio, which 9 times out of 10 I am.
Tusk’s “Mediterranean and Middle Eastern spirit” can be attributed to its founding chef, Sam Smith, who put in time at the acclaimed Israeli restaurant Zahav in Philadelphia. Like any good Portland chef, Smith adapted Tusk’s Mediterranean menu to include seasonal, local ingredients. You’ll find the classics you expect—pillowy loaves of pita, creamy tahini hummus, impossibly moist falafel—alongside more PNW-inspired dishes like sweet potato kibbeh with bulgar and kale or rainbow carrots with mushroom conserva.
It would be smart to stick with these vegetable-forward dishes. The meat entrees are enjoyable but forgettable. I’ve heard that from most anyone who’s dined here. You’re better off ordering hearty vegetarian mains and sides and building your own little buffet that can be dressed up with condiments like crunchy dukka or spicy zhug.
Whatever you order should be mopped up with flatbread, a side with undeniable star power. The bread is made fresh on site and to order, and serves as your sturdy utensil throughout the meal. As plate after plate arrives, you’ll accumulate sauces and dips and, like a painter’s palette, blend your own beautiful, saucy creation.
It would be easy to compare places like Shalom Y’All or Hoda's to Tusk. To create a hierarchy of hummus. But why? My capacity for quality Mediterranean food in Portland is limitless.
What does set Tusk apart, however, is its all-day Monday Happy Hour. Or Golden Hour, as they’ve dubbed it. The menu includes $10 sliders, $9 wings, and $12 lamb poutine among other food specials and $2 off any specialty cocktail or draft beer. The Kafta smash burger slider is a perfect choice with grilled onions, kashkaval cheese, and harissa mayo sandwiched between two shiny buns. You can’t go wrong ordering a couple of sliders and Tusk’s version of a martini—olive oil fat washed gin, za’atar infused vermouth, and sea salt—to wash it down.
The drinks in general are delicious. The Hazy Jane, vodka paired with hibiscus, lemon, and ginger and smoothed out with creamy yogurt, is reminiscent—in the very best way—of liquid pepto-bismol. And the Styx and Stones, toasted rice & cinnamon infused tequila, apricot syrup, caperitif, lime, rum float, is a savory choice that pairs perfectly with the food. A decent number of zero-proof cocktails are available, too, that aren’t eligible for happy hour, but did receive my sober dinner companion’s stamp of approval.
The only thing more challenging than finding a restaurant open past 9 pm in Portland is finding one that’s open on a Monday. And Tusk’s all-day happy hour makes the Monday dining out experience even more of a score.
Forget Willamette Week. Forget SoHi Brands. Tusk is still open and pumping out great food and drinks. And a girl’s gotta eat (at reasonable prices on a Monday when she doesn’t feel like cooking).
Extras
Tusk Supper Club: Each month, the Tusk team curates a rotating multi-course meal for 2 or for 4 people ($75 and $150, respectively) that can be eaten at home. All meals come fully prepared with reheating instructions.
Deluxe Edition: Can’t decide what to order? Get the chef’s tasting menu for $55/pp vegetarian or $65/pp meat.
Tusk x Monument Wine Dinner on Nov 13: Enjoy a 5-course menu featuring Smoked Trout Tarlets, Lamb Neck Stew and Lamb Chops and more. All paired with wines from organic winery, Monument. You might recall that I mentioned Monument in the last edition of Going Out: they are a tiny winery that makes surprisingly big wines! This is a great opportunity to meet the guy behind the operation.