Epilogue Kitchen and Cocktails

Best Restaurants, Food Carts, and Bars in Salem, Oregon | Eater Portland

"A meal at Epilogue comes with a story both figuratively and sometimes literally. The menu in the small, emerald-hued dining room pulls inspiration from co-owners Jonathan Jones and Maura Ryan’s history: The crab cakes with Old Bay remoulade eschew Dungeness for the briny sweetness of blue crab, like the ones Jones grew up eating in ​​Southeastern Pennsylvania. Pimento cheese, served with bread and butter pickles and a legendarily flaky biscuit, speaks to the couple’s time in North Carolina. Friday night fish fry and the ever-present brandy Old Fashioned on the cocktail menu toast their years in Wisconsin. Epilogue also operates what the restaurant calls a lending library of Black excellence: Along with your meal, for a $15 refundable deposit, you can borrow Booker T. Washington’s Up From Slavery or Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give. Vocal participants in Salem’s mutual aid network and racial justice efforts, Jones and Ryan use the restaurant as a hub to celebrate inclusivity and equality, all while serving some of the most distinctive plates in town." - Emily Teel