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República

@republicapdx

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Mexico-forward cuisine
We’ve gone back to our roots! Come get brunch Thurs-Sun 10am-3pm

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**Beets on beets on beets.**

That's the tostada. I figured that if autumn was going to walk through our doors, we might as well give it a proper seat at the table.

We're committing to it all; the colors, the ingredients, the little things that remind you there's something beautiful about a season changing, even when you're not quite ready to let the last one go.

At the base, a purée of golden beets, golden Tabasco peppers, and habanadas, bringing a little brightness and gentle warmth to the whole thing. Then more beets. Some roasted, others pickled. Three different expressions of the same vegetable, each doing something entirely different. All those beautiful autumn colors, looking like they belong exactly where they are.

A few tendrils, a dusting of totomoxtle; roasted corn husks ground into a powder for their deep, toasted flavor, and finally, thin slices of fresh habanada. Simple things. Nothing added that doesn't belong.

Now, some people might look at this and wonder what makes it Mexican. I've always found that question interesting. Despite what so-called food writers in thos town might think, Mexican cuisine isn't confined to a familiar collection of ingredients or dishes. It comes from somewhere. It carries an origin, a history, a way of understanding food. And for us, that understanding is what allows us to take what's growing around us here in Oregon and make something that feels entirely our own.

Which brings me back to the tostada. If this is your first visit to República, just let me feed you my menu. And if you can't, start with this dish, or perhaps something else that catches your attention. Something unfamiliar. Something that makes you curious enough to ask a question.

We love those questions. We love telling you where the food comes from, how it came to be, and why it belongs on your plate. Every dish carries a history much older than the restaurant serving it. Some of those stories stretch back thousands of years. And there's nothing on this tostada whose beginnings we can't tell you about.

After all, we're not trying to reinvent thousands of years of history. We're simply finding our place in it, one season at a time.

-Angel

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Mole de Hoja Santa.

You could go all the way back to the Mexica and further still, to find hoja santa woven into the culinary and spiritual traditions of Mesoamerica. A sacred leaf, growing wild in some places, used for generations for reasons that go well beyond cooking.

The fascination has been there from day one. Something so familiar in Mexico, yet so difficult to find here in Oregon. When we first started building relationships with local farmers and producers, we kept asking the same questions: Can you grow this? Have you heard of that? Hoja santa, quintonil, pápalo, pipicha. You name it, we were looking for it. Not simply to recreate the things we knew from Mexico, but to find new ways to incorporate these ingredients into our cooking, to celebrate them, and to see what they could become here. Hoja santa was no exception. But making a mole from it is an entirely different undertaking.

Even the beautiful little flower spikes, resembling vanilla pods, find their way into the process. Mole may translate to sauce, but anyone who has ever made one knows that what it really requires is patience. And this mole verde is no exception.

We begin with the green tops of leeks, roasted to develop their depth, and sorrel to bring a little acidity. Then come the pistachios, more hoja santa, a touch of kale, chile güero, and the last of the season's shishitos and padrón peppers. As the seasons change, so will the peppers. And with them, the mole itself. That's the beauty of allowing what's growing around us to have a say in what we're cooking.

On top, roasted eggplant, the white ends of those same leeks, another appearance from the pistachios, and dinosaur kale, fried until it develops an almost seaweed-like flavor, bringing a beautiful umami to the entire dish.

There's a tremendous amount of patience, work, and consideration behind something that eventually disappears in a few bites. But that's the part we love. Taking what the season offers, giving every ingredient its proper attention, and making something beautiful while we still can.

Mole de Hoja Santa. On the menu now, though never quite the same for long.

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Papitas doradas con aioli de chile chihuacle.

Everything you see on this plate comes from people we know. Our farmers, our producers, our friends who grow and make beautiful things right here in the Pacific Northwest.

It's a philosophy that runs through everything we do at República and our sister restaurant @liliacomedor . We begin with Mexico, its traditions, its ingredients, its history, and allow the people and seasons around us to influence what comes next.

For this dish, we take chihuacle peppers from our friends at Oso Honey Farms, blister them, and save the skins to make into a beautiful, deeply aromatic oil. The leftover leek tops from another dish are blanched and transformed into a second oil, this one bright green. Then there's garlic, onions, and honey from that same producer. Our eggs from Winter Farms, and a little shaved cotija from Don Froylan to finish. Nothing particularly complicated. Just good ingredients treated with the attention they deserve.

And that's really the magic of it. Everything on this plate is a collaboration between the people who grow things, the people who make things, and the people who bring them together. It's our way of respecting where something comes from while celebrating where we are and the people who make it possible.
:::::::::

Potatoes: @cohesivefarmspdx
Honey, chihuacles, garlic: @osohoneyfarm
Eggs: @wintersfarms
Leeks, potatoes: @sunriseorganicfarm.llc
Cheese: @donfroylancreamery

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Final evening dinner for the Diagnostic Laryngology Workshop. James arranged a very special “chef’s table” meal at República, where each carefully-curated course is accompanied by a beautiful story from Chef Angél. In fact, James managed to secure the entire restaurant for this private event. Bravo, James! Thank you to everyone who participated!

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What. A. Meal.

Had one of the best dining experiences I’ve had in a while at @republicapdx . Chef Angel is doing something special, and Portland is lucky to have him.

When we sat down, we told him we were happy to let him drive the meal. He pulled out all the stops and delivered a family-style tasting menu that completely blew us away. Two kinds of mole. A tostada showcasing the season’s last tomatoes. A paper-thin huarachito with three varieties of tomatoes. Potatoes paired with a chile from Oaxaca. And a fried concha, which I had never even heard of before and am somehow still thinking about.

We spend so much time talking about what’s new that we forget about the restaurants that helped build this city’s food culture in the first place. A good reminder that not every amazing meal comes from the newest reservation in town. Sometimes it’s the places that have been quietly raising the bar all along.

Don’t get so distracted by the next big thing that you forget the places that got us here. They’re often still serving some of the best food in town ✨

#pdxfood #portlandfood #republicapdx

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You could argue about pan de muerto for hours. Not about its significance. I think we can all agree on that. It's a beautiful expression of remembrance, a bread made to celebrate the people who left us long before we were ready to say goodbye.

But the bread itself? That's where things get interesting.

You could trace its history to the Portuguese, to European traditions surrounding All Saints' Day, to Día de Muertos and the beautiful collision of cultures that eventually gave us the marigolds, the ofrendas, and the extraordinary feast of colors and flavors we recognize today.

But I like to go back a little further. To the conquest of Mexico, to La Noche Triste, when Hernado Cortés and his men fled Tenochtitlan, leaving hundreds dead behind them. And eventually to a man named Juan Garrido, a free Black conquistador whose life was entangled in the complicated and often brutal history of slavery and conquest.

As the story goes, Garrido planted three grains of wheat that had arrived among a shipment of rice. From those few grains came what is remembered as the first wheat harvest in New Spain.

Think about that for a moment. Three grains of wheat.

And from there, centuries of evolution. The arrival of Maximiliano and Carlota, the European influences and techniques that followed, and generations of Mexican bakers who took something foreign and made it unmistakably their own. Birote, bolillo, pan dulce; the concha, and, of course, the pan de muerto. Every one of them carrying a history much greater than the ingredients that make them.

Which brings me back to this bread.

There's something remarkable about the fact that it exists at all. That centuries of conquest, migration, adaptation, and tradition have brought us to something so beautifully simple. A bread that, for all its complicated history, asks very little of us except to remember.

So we make it for them. For those who came before us, those who taught us, those we loved, and those we still miss.

Simple things, complex beginnings.

Pan de muerto. At República.

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For much of their history, carrots weren't orange. They were purple, yellow, sometimes even white.
Then the Dutch got their hands on them, and somewhere along the way, orange became the color we all recognize today. Sweeter, more consistent, and eventually the standard. Which makes sense, I suppose. When I think of the Dutch, I think of those bright orange soccer jerseys. But that's a conversation for another day.

Even the word carrot has an interesting history, tracing back through Greek to a word associated with a horn. Which, when you look at the shape, makes perfect sense.

All of which is a very long way of telling you that we have some extraordinary carrots.

Thanks to my dear friend Josie at Little Benji, who has supplied us with enough carrots for the next three weeks, we're making something rather beautiful.

Zanahorias, three ways. Twice-cooked carrots, requesón whipped with their own greens, and tender carrot sprigs to finish. A little salsa negra, candied pepitas for texture, and a few more pieces of that beautiful requesón. We're using the whole carrot, from the root to the leaves, giving every part a reason to be there.

Nothing unnecessary. Nothing added simply because it looks pretty. Although, admittedly, it is pretty fucking beautiful.

That's it. That's the dish. Come try it, or better yet, go buy whatever carrots my friend has left at her stand. Either way, you win.

- @smalltimegenius

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Last week, we said goodbye to summer. Apparently, summer didn't get the memo.

Or maybe it did and simply chose to ignore us. Either way, the farmers are still bringing us beautiful tomatoes, and we're not about to argue.

So here we are. Tostada de fin de verano, parte II.
One more week of summer on the plate. Maybe two, if we're lucky.

Beautiful collection of heirloom tomatoes, sliced thinly and cut individually, allowing them to become part of the tostada rather than overwhelm it. Because as beautiful as a dish might look, you should still be able to eat the damn thing without it being entire pulled apart.

Ground cherries for their delicate sweetness, and raw tomatillos, which, for reasons I've never understood, everyone seems obsessed with cooking. Have you ever eaten one raw? To me, they taste like green apples. Bright, tart, and carrying a little magic all their own.

Then there's the salsa. You could call it salsa macha, but that name has become so overplayed that I'd rather just tell you what's in it: cacahuate, ajonjolí, chile morita, among other beautiful things. A little of that to bring everything together.

Finally, wasabe flowers, marygolds, a touch of totomoxtle (charred corn husk). A reminder that what you're eating belongs to a season that's slowly slipping away, and that even as it leaves us, it still has something beautiful to give.

Enjoy it while it's here. The seasons have never been particularly interested in waiting for us.

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Saturday mornings at the PSU Farmers Market have a way of changing your plans. You arrive with a list, convinced you know exactly what you came for. Then the market reminds you that it knows better.

We went in for what we needed for the week’s menu. On our way out, we realized there was apparently one more week of corn.

Olivia and I looked at each other.

“Get it.”

So we did. As much as we could.

And here it is. A maiz tetela with sweet corn, two ways. Roasted corn on top, with a salsa made from roasted corn and roasted Hungarian peppers. Fig for sweetness. House made requeson for that soft, creamy filling inside the tetela. That’s really it.

Simple things. Nothing pretentious. Nothing added just to make the dish sound more interesting than it is. Truth is, when something is this good, your job isn’t to show people how clever you are. Your job is to know when to leave it alone.

As the old saying goes... and by old saying, I mean something I keep saying:

Don’t add anything that doesn’t belong. Whatever belongs, make it more beautiful.

I can’t think of a better example than this.

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Tomato season is coming to an end, and my abandonment issues are at full bloom.

I’m preserving everything I can get my hands on. Fermenting, sun-drying, roasting, confiting, pickling; anlything that might buy me a few more weeks. Every time I go to the market, I hold my breath a little. Every time I call one of our farmers or vendors, I ask the same question: How much longer?

Not much.

So while we still have them, I'm giving them the whole plate.

Huarache de tomate, three ways.

It starts with a salsa fermentada made from fermented cherry tomatoes and their juices, black garlic, chihuacles. and roasted leeks. Then cherries, Bumble Bees, and Sungolds; some roasted, some confit. A little house-made queso fresco, all sitting on maiz criollo cooked until crisp on the outside and still tender underneath.

That’s it. Nothing there to distract from the thing we’re going to spend the next nine months missing.

One of my favorite dishes on the menu right now.

Come get it before I have to let go.

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It Starts with the Coffee

I had a chance to travel over the last couple of weeks, and everywhere I went, I found myself wondering about the coffee. I had some incredible food, but for the most part, the coffee was a poor showing.

For some reason, coffee is the thing that always gets lost. You either get something pressed out of a machine, or there's simply no attention given to taking the time to make a proper pour-over.

For me, the pour-over is so important. There's so much control over what you're serving. You can choose from four or five different coffees depending on what someone is eating, what their mood is, or even what your own mood is that morning.

I rely on blends. I blend almost daily, depending on whatever I'm feeling that morning. It's one of the more important parts of what we do.

Yes, come for the food. The food is incredible, and everything is driven by the seasons. But the coffee? The coffee is what sets us apart from everybody else in this town.

-Angel

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I’ve been gone for three weeks.
I missed this place. I missed you all.

My niece @maddsmedina and the República team have been crushing service while I’ve been away, but goddamn, it’s nice to be back.

For once, I didn’t even have to make coffee this morning. Coffee was made for me. Everything was in order. The place hadn’t missed a beat.

So, back to it. Back to what we do best: cooking with the seasons. And those seasons continue to move, just as we continue to move.

Today, that means squash adobada. More specifically, the huarache. That’s the thing you want to try. I think it’s one of the more special dishes we’ve made in a while.

A little side note: when we created this direction for brunch, we did it with the intention of making as much of the menu vegan from the beginning as possible.

I have many opinions about the vegan movement. Some of it gets on my fucking nerves. Mostly because I’ve never understood the obsession with turning plants into some bullshit imitation of chicken or meat just so you can put it in a taco. There is so much incredible stuff growing around us. Cook that. Make something new. Make something that belongs.

Which is also why I hate categorizing our food in the first place.

You make something vegan for the same reason you make anything else: because it tastes better that way.

As you know, I have a saying:

Don’t add anything that doesn’t belong. Whatever belongs, make it more beautiful.

This huarache is an expression of that.

And I’ll leave you with something I found while I was gone. During one of my early morning walks, I came across a plaque dedicated to Don José Manuel Zavala—a writer and reporter—bearing a line that stopped me:

“El que no vive para servir, no sirve para vivir.”

If that isn’t a motto for hospitality, I don’t know what is.

Thank you for having me back.

-Angel

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