Le Pigeon

Le Pigeon (http://www.lepigeon.com/) is a French restaurant operated by a 26-year old chef called Gabriel Rucker. I first ate at Le Pigeon with my culinary partner, Jose. Wait time for a table then was one hour. It was at the end of 2006. A couple months later Gabriel Rucker was named Best New Chef by Food and Wine magazine. His restaurant has now won Best Restaurant in Portland. The wait time for a table is now an hour and forty five minutes. You pretty much leave your name on a list and then go shopping until they call you to come back for your table.

The menu at Le Pigeon is simplistic. It has five appetisers and five entrees and four desserts. However, the menu changes pretty frequently. I went there with a co-worker. She had the pork with green beans, mushrooms, crème fraîche and I had the quail with squash, marrow, cherry tomatoes. Both were absolutely amazing! But the pork simply blew me away. How I wish I had gotten that instead! With that we had a bottle of Patton Valley Vineyard Pinot Noir, a local vineyard.

The wine

The quail

The pork

For dessert we honey, bacon, apricot cornbread with maple ice cream. You must be thinking bacon with dessert? But I tell you, it works and it was fabulous.

The dessert

All in all a complete satisfying dinner.