Cult-Favorite Tasting Menu Spot Willow Has Closed Permanently | Eater Portland

"I followed Willow since Bluehour alumni John Pickett and Doug Weiler took over the former Fenrir space and turned a pop-up into an intimate, pop-up-turned-restaurant in Southeast Portland that served a true “Cascadian” six-course tasting menu highlighting hyper-local Pacific Northwestern ingredients. I saw it start in spring 2016 with three-course dinners before scaling to a six-course prix fixe, with dishes ranging from poached salmon with cucumber and dill to a steak tartare crafted to mimic the flavors of a cheeseburger. The room was meant to feel like someone’s apartment — homey and intimate with fewer than 20 seats — and it cultivated a loyal roster of regulars who returned for an innovative and relatively inexpensive tasting menu; OpenTable ranked it among its Top 100 Restaurants of 2019 and Yelp listed it as one of its “Top 100 Places to Treat Yourself.” When the pandemic hit, I watched Willow struggle as a small tasting-menu restaurant without outdoor seating: it hibernated, launched takeout in summer 2020, reopened for dine-in in 2021 then went on hiatus in December, and although it was consistently fully booked after reopening last May, I learned that sustained burnout led the owners to permanently close (a voicemail and a March 9 sign confirmed the closure). The team announced a farewell party on April 23 from 4 to 8 p.m., and I understand Pickett and Weiler are now taking time to assess their next steps." - Brooke Jackson-Glidden