Jacqueline Restaurant to Take Over Former St. Jack Venue on SE Clinton

Once home to St. Jack, and for a half a millisecond, the French Renard restaurant, 2039 SE Clinton St. is prime real estate. Now Jacqueline, a seasonal, vegetable and seafood-focused restaurant, is moving into the fast-growing neighborhood, just steps from Burrasca, Yama Sushi & Izakaya, and Night Light Lounge, and according to the press release, chef owners Derek Hanson and Brandi Lansill are combining some of the buzziest and more progressive elements in the restaurant industry.

Jacqueline will serve a vegetable-forward menu and fresh seafood from the Oregon coast—believe it or not, this is a relatively new thing for most Portland restaurants—and it will feature a one-house business model to pay chefs a living wage. So expect chefs serving you your food.

Currently most interesting are Hanson and Lansill's cooking backgrounds. Hanson trained under the innovative Cory Schrieber and Adam Sappington (The Country Cat) at Wildwood. He was also chef de cuisine at Laurelhurst Market when it was named "One of the Best Restaurants in America" by Bon Appetit and runner up to The Oregonian's Restaurant of the Year. Then Hanson helped open the Multnomah Whiskey Library and simultaneously served as executive chef at Produce Row Cafe. In recent years, he worked as executive chef of Broder and Broder Nord.

Focusing on pastry at Jacqueline, Lansill has a no less-impressive background. She worked pastry at Wolfgang Puck's Michelin-starred Spago and Josiah Citrin's Michelin-starred Melissé in Los Angeles. In 2011, she moved to Portland, and she's since worked as sous chef at Old Salt Marketplace and Renata.

Add to all this Jacqueline's third owner, Brian Dufour, who will manage the restaurant. Dufour's background includes management at Por Que No and Secret Society.

Jacqueline isn't ready to announce a confirmed opening date but says construction moves smoothly, so it could open as soon as mid-July. Stay tuned here as more details develop.