![]() After you enter the restaurant and ask to put your name down - and you must always do so, because although the tables are lined bumper to bumper with almost no space in between, there is never an empty chair available - you must immediately head back outside to wait outside the stoop, where others crowd around the entryway. The restaurant has so many idiosyncrasies that I want to engrave into my memory - minor quirks of the place which amounted to a real, authentic experience, rather than just a filling of the belly. A mosaic at the threshold of the building spells out the Latin phrase, “venite, ad me, vos qui stomacho laboratis et ego restaurebo vos,” which translates to: “Come to me, all of you whose stomachs are in distress, and I will restore you.” It’s a riff off of Matthew 11:28 - ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.’ ‘Stomach’ was really a metaphor for ‘spirit,’ which was the true beneficiary. Tucked in a corner lot along SE Morrison and cast in perpetual shadow beneath the Morrison bridge, the restaurant carries with it a mischievous aura - the aura of a place off the grid where secrets can remain under wraps. The dim interior, scantily lit with tealight candles and small electric fixtures which mimic the warm glow of an open flame, recreates the intimate, sultry vibe of a speakeasy. I have always revered Montage as a city staple, alongside others like the Rimsky Korsakoffee House and the Pied Cow. It was a place where us Portlanders verbalized and stored our hopes and dreams, absorbed in the grooves of macaroni noodles and insulated in the casings of our intestines, which we then wrapped in layers of plastic and tin foil to carry with us home. It was a place that I swore I would eventually take the love of my life to, on a tour of my hometown (assuming that he would be from out of state). It was a place they introduced me to when I was in middle school, which I would then proceed to introduce to some of my best friends from high school and college. ![]() It was one of my parents’ first date spots, back when they started seeing each other in the eighties/nineties. The restaurant holds a special place in the hearts of my family. Six days later on June 24th, they released a statement stating that they would be permanently closing after 27 years of serving the Portland community. On June 18th, one of my favorite restaurants in Portland, a cajun and creole place called Le Bistro Montage, publicly announced on Facebook that they were preparing to reopen with restrictions to ensure the safety of their customers and employees.
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