Ready, Set, Goat: PDX Chefs Pair Up for Dinner at Metrovino.

Metrovino Dining Room
So why is Le Pigeon’s superstar Chef, Gabe Rucker, darting away from his vaulted LoBu post to cook up dinner in the depths of the Pearl District? Well, it looks like Metrovino’s executive chef Greg Denton has got his goat. Or at least a goat. Together the pair has developed a six-course whole goat menu they’ll serve at a family-style dinner at Metrovino on Monday, February 22, 2010. The pricey dinner — $100 per person, including wine pairings—will have each chef contributing their creative juices to the goat menu, with each of them responsible for three courses.

So how did Denton get Rucker to cross the river? “When I was at the Nicky’s USA “Wild About Game” at Mount Hood, I was talking to several Portland chefs (including) Rucker about whole animal dinners and chef’s dinners,” says Denton. “Gabe seemed very excited about doing a whole goat dinner with me at Metrovino.” Rucker, who enjoys the gamey quality and obscurity of the low-fat meat says "goat is big at Le Pigeon. When we run it on the menu people really love it!” Denton agrees: “Goat is a lean, sweet meat that is a little less gamey than lamb. I think it has a bad rap because of its name. Goat. I can see it now, “Goat the other red meat.”