Peter Cho's Long-Anticipated Restaurant Concept Readies to Open

After months of pop-ups and potential restaurant concepts, April Bloomfield-progeny Peter Cho has settled on Han Oak, a reservation-only restaurant with a seemingly no-holds-barred take on Korean barbecue, located inside of The Ocean complex at 511 NE 24th Ave. Breaking the news today, Portland Monthly reports Han Oak will serve dinner Saturdays and Sundays beginning February 13, and you can expect between six and nine courses for $55, with option beverage pairings.

The menu currently on the Han Oak website shows Cho cooking with his signature playfulness in the form of snacks (blood cake with duck-fat-fried quail egg), savory plates (Korean fried chicken of the woods mushroom, with spicy gochujang and tamarind glaze), and desserts (persimmon sorbet and rice cakes with smoked honey). And Cho's restaurant space will be much more:

• Han Oak is also the temporary home for Nodoguro, chef Ryan Roadhouse's themed Japanese restaurant, which takes over the space on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
• Chef Sam Smith (Ava Gene's, Zahav) hosts the LaMama dinner series on Friday nights, delivering vegetable-forward family-style meals with vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options available (with advanced notice) for $40/person. This will likely run through at least March.
• Peter Cho welcomes other chefs to apply to take over the space or embark on a collaboration dinner, so keep an eye on Han Oak's calendar for tasty new projects in the near future.
• Han Oak is also a chef residency, and interested chefs can apply through the website. Han Oak describes the residency as "a limited-run restaurant-in-a-restaurant experience helmed by Peter's distinguished chef friends."
• Han Oak is also a rentable private events space.
• Stray Birds isn't necessarily gone for good. The high-profile collaboration between Cho and Johnny Leach (Clyde Common, Momofuku Ko, Ma Peche) didn't go brick-and-mortar, but Cho tells PoMo he hopes to work with Leach at Han Oak down the road.
• Han Oak may offer a Japanese and Korean-inspired brunch as soon as March.