Photo by John Valls
For many years in Portland beginning in the 1970s and continuing through the 1990s and beyond, Genoa Restaurant was not just a premiere destination for sophisticated, authentic Italian cuisine - it was the place. In a nation of Chef Boyardees, Genoa was Marcella Hazan, the grand dame.
But the restaurant at 2832 Southeast Belmont Street closed in 2008 and, by that time, despite its exquisite food, the restaurant felt like an anachronism, all worn carpet and seven-course meals.
Now, it's a pleasure to report that Genoa is not only back, but the restaurant's original location has been updated to include an adjacent cafe one is likely to frequent on a much more regular basis.
Photos by Brian Libby
Architecturally speaking, I'd argue the renovated restaurant (pictured above) is vastly better than the old Genoa ever was. Much as we foodies may have swooned at the arancini (fried risotto balls), the homemade pastas and all the other exquisite food at the old Genoa courtesy of great chefs like Kathy Whims and Jerry Huisinga, I never loved the interiors or layout. The kitchen was so small that a lot of wait staff duties like gathering silverware and pouring drinks were out with the diners. The curtains were closed so natural light was practically nonexistent, meaning you had either fluorescent light or near darkness. I can appreciate a fine dining restaurant trying to carve out an intimate space, but even when the food was great I'd have preferred the inside to upgrade from the textures and approach of the Carter administration.
By contrast, Genoa's new dining room (pictured immediately above and below) is beautifully rendered with wood floors, curtains and a fireplace, even as familiar bits of the old restaurant like a beautiful armoire remain. Curtains still assure the space does not have a fishbowl effect, but storefront glass allows more natural light to come through. A wall now separates the dining room from the kitchen, with the small wall that was there now removed.
Photo by John Valls
Yet if diners want to experience an open kitchen and a more casual atmosphere with a coule of courses instead of seven, the adjacent cafe, known as Accanto, has a more open feel, both figuratively and literally speaking. The kitchen area is completely with a row of barstools surrounding the cooks.
Overall, Accanto (pictured below) is much more in keeping with casual and more affordable restaurants of recent years that still have great food, neighborhood spots like Savoy, Cafe Castagna or Bar Mingo. You can stop there for a wild boar ragut sandwich at lunch, like I did, or even a late-morning espresso, like a few locals seem to do. There are also entrees of the same quality you'll find next door in the dining room, only available a la carte.
Photos by Brian Libby
The team behind Genoa's rebirth included architecture firm Works Partnership and the design-build company Siteworks as well as Fix, an interdisciplinary design studio. I liked the simple layout of the restaurant, although what may have stood out most, at least to my eyes, was the richness of the materials, some of which were older salvaged materials and others that were newer and polished. [Note: I originally did not include Fix in my list of design credit along with Works and Siteworks - apologies for that. There are also several subcontractors whom I may not have mentioned.]
The bar at Accanto, for example, is made with live-edge walnut (pictured below), meaning it undulates with the tree's remaining knots and crevices. But Jean-Pierre Veillet, owner of Siteworks, also combined the walnut with steel, part of a series of subtle contrasts throughout the space such as the black and white tiles on the kitchen's back wall, the steel mirror and the kumaru wood floors, and the open and secluded halves of the restaurant itself.
Wood makes a lot of different appearances. Another favorite material I saw was a salvaged set of double doors (pictured above) in the Genoa dining room that originally were part of a church. Accanto also has a wall in back clad in wood with built-in bookshelves, and the ceiling is festooned with slats of wood that partially but not entirely cover the ceiling rafters behind it.
Veillet, a native Portlander, has an interesting history. Trained as an artist at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, he later taught sculpture there for eight years and now funds a scholarship at the school. You can see the ongoing artistic love in some of the first-rate artworks Veillet has lent to Accanto, such as a portrait called "Same Ol' Same Ol'" by legendary local painter Arvie Smith at the front of the restaurant and an original Chuck Close artwork on the way to the bathroom. Veillet's portfolio also includes design-build services for retail clients like the Lizard Lounge clothing store in the Pearl District.
A "Design Statement" Viellet emailed explains, "With his firm, Siteworks, Veillet has taken his background in site-specific art and mixed it with a serious shot of writing, poetry, and experience to produce spaces that communicate with people through objects, design, and elegance."
Photo by Angel Franco/New York Times
Another of his projects, a temporary store for the clothing company Nau, was featured last month in the New York Times. In that piece, Eric Wilson wrote:
"The green movement in fashion, in which designers do go on about hugging the planet with their biodynamic cotton henleys, would appear to be at odds with the 'pop up' shop movement in fashion, in which the very same designers open temporary stores, lavishly redecorate them and then, when they close a few weeks later, toss all the fixtures, lights and displays to the curb."
Mr. Veillet said his idea was to create a space using materials that were almost entirely rooted in New York City’s waste stream — fallen tree limbs found on the street, timber and metal pipes from derelict Brooklyn factories and piles of discarded cardboard boxes — so that when the store closes, at least the garbage won’t be new."
Veillet and Works Partnership also have another project in the works, a series of what they're calling "eco flats", or low-cost, high-density, multifamily housing units, on Williams Avenue.
I will be going back to Genoa as soon as this weekend's freezing rain is over and done with!
Posted by: kathleen mazzocco | December 11, 2009 at 07:13 PM
OK - can't hold back anymore. You do a great service to the city and I'm a big fan, even when I don't agree... but... would you mind editing a little more before you publish? All the typos and missed words are distracting. Still, they can be humorous - can't wait to try the "wild board sandwich!"
You also might save yourself some flack by editing more. Someone commented a while back on your piece about the new ZGF tower, that your speculation into their business solvency was out of line. Personally, I think that reader was right. I think if you had read the paragraph in which that conjecture was made, you would have noticed the tortured nature of the grammar and logic was probably indicative of a problem with the idea, and you likely would have removed it.
Again, very much appreciate what you do. But you should hold your blog up to the same exacting standards you would apply to any designer, architect or planner. It's only fair.
Posted by: matthew | December 13, 2009 at 02:47 PM
And let me be the first to say that I probably could have edited that comment better...
Posted by: matthew | December 13, 2009 at 02:49 PM
Thanks for your suggestions and commentary, Matthew. You're right: I've made some errors. I'm sorry for that. I'll continue to keep trying my best. The problem is it's a one man operation and so far no one is volunteering to help edit for free.
I went back and looked at the comment from the ZGF post you mentioned. Here's the original text:
"Given how the economy has tumbled, I might worry a little about ZGF living up to this Grand Palais of an architectural office. Can they design enough hospitals, airports and academic buildings to pay the mortgage? I say this not out of any inside knowledge of ZGF. Or if I do have inside knowledge of the firm, it's that ZGF seems to be at a high level when it comes to producing quality design. "
I don't see anything wrong with this paragraph, or at least not the "tortured nature of the grammar and logic" that you mentioned, nor the "problem with the idea".
My idea was simple and rooted in relevant socio-economic fact: ZGF's office was conceived in an economic boom and now is opening during the worst economic climate since the Great Depression. It's a huge new office, and huge new offices mean greater overhead. Greater overhead means more challenge in making a profit. In the second half of that same paragraph, I cautioned that this was mere speculation on my part so as not to start an unsubstantiated rumor about ZGF's business affairs. Yet just because I don't want to start an incorrect rumor does not invalidate the introduction of this overall idea, that ZGF is faced with opening their office during challenging times.
Let's also look at the update to this Genoa post that seems to have triggered your comment about my editing or lack thereof.
I wrestled in the first place with whether to add Fix to the list of firms credited with the design. But it's not so cut and dry. This project did not have just a simple architect and contractor at the top of the pyramid. Even the building team members themselves are not in complete agreement on how credit should be distributed.
I can be defensive when I'm being called out in public, but I appreciate the fact that you're trying to help in a constructive way. Best,
---Brian
Posted by: Brian Libby | December 13, 2009 at 04:29 PM
WELCOME BACK GENOA!
And a great design by Siteworks and WPA.... I especially like the very elegant dining room. It looks as if the chadeliers are made of cast glass. As a supporter of this homegrown craft and art, I hope so!
Alas, will we ever learn how to manage the HVAC system?
The ducting is right out of "Brazil" and it detracts from the very interesting ceiling treatment and the spatial flow.
I would love to see the archietural community address this issue with more rigor. I get the form/function/honesty basis for leaving ducting exposed, and of course know/understand the real constraints at hand.
That said, I look forward to dining in this inviting and beautiful space. Congrats!
Posted by: Richard Potestio | December 14, 2009 at 04:16 PM
Don't worry about perfectly edited prose. This is a blog; it's live, it's more free form than a book. If blog posts were edited with the painstaking detail involved in book editing (okay, some book editing), then half of the good stuff wouldn't get written as writers labored over syntax. Lke email, a blog is more stream of thought, and mistakes are part of the process. Love your blog; I learn so much.
Posted by: Laura O. Foster | December 15, 2009 at 10:25 AM
I'm sorry Laura, but I can not fully agree with your train of thought.
I can agree that editing a blog post should not be as painstaking a process as editing a book, but it can be as well edited as a newspaper or magazine article.
But honestly I'm not that concerned with grammar or prose, those are mistakes and I understand no one is perfect. My concern however is regarding fact, hearsay versus journalism. There seems to be instances when parts of a story are left out and I would hate to see this site fed by PR firms telling only the stories of their clients.
I understand that Brian is the creator of and solely responsible for this blog. I am very appreciative for having the forum to read about new issues and occasionally debate.
I also understand the argument that this is a non-paying gig for Brian and probably extremely time consuming. But I would argue the fact that there should be a responsibility to the readers as well as the advertisers of this site to tell the whole story. I would also assume that the popularity of this blog has lead to an increase of outside work...magazine articles, portland modern features, heck even radio ads...and that popularity is based on readership.
I'll be clear that I don't find this to be a big problem on this site, and I am thankful for the forum... but when it is noticeable, it is disconcerting.
Thank you for your continued effort.
Posted by: truth | December 16, 2009 at 02:27 PM
Truth,
I appreciate your contributions and ideas here. However, one part of what you said concerns me: that I'm succumbing to hearsay or passing on PR. Although I'm definitely guilty of some typos, I do not believe in the slightest that I fall victim to hearsay or being a PR hack. If that starts to be true, I would stop blogging.
Matthew initially brought up the issue of ZGF's finances that I raised in the article, and I can see how this could be construed as hearsay, but this was not the case. I was talking about how any firm opening a large office in a very bad recession would face a challenge.
Let me also say that I would LOVE to have someone preview and edit my blog posts to minimize the risk of mistake. Sometimes you just can't successfully edit your own pieces - you need a fresh pair of eyes. But so far my queries for editing help have gone unanswered.
My thinking about blogs versus journalism is that blogs are more of an ongoing conversation and journalism is more fixed. If there's an error here on Portland Architecture, it can be corrected and even, if applicable, be brought into the conversation itself. In that sense, I think of readers completing a blogger's work.
Overall, I would love to grow this site to no longer be solely from me. But that is going to have to be a multiyear process. In the meantime, I can almost guarantee all of you I will continue to make both occasional spelling and grammatical errors as well as the occasional factual error. Part of me wants to apologize in advance for this, and really feels bad. Another part of me feels...let's just say differently.
Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read Portland Architecture and contribute to the conversation.
Posted by: Brian Libby | December 16, 2009 at 04:39 PM
Brian,
Thanks for the response. However I was not referring to the ZGF article at all...as far as i'm concerned your comments regarding ZGF in this business climate were appropriate, and more of a question than a statement anyways.
But I will reiterate that am thankful for having your blog as a forum for what's happening around here.
As for editing, I'm by far no editor by trade, but i'd be happy to offer my services, to proof read anything. If you are interested i'd be happy to give you a real name and email to contact.
Posted by: truth | December 17, 2009 at 12:32 PM
Truth,
Happy to take you up on it. Email me anytime at [email protected].
Posted by: Brian Libby | December 17, 2009 at 12:35 PM