Coquine Inaugurates Full-Service Lunch

For the first time since opening in 2015, the sassy, French-inspired Coquine restaurant, Eater PDX’s 2015 Restaurant of the Year, is rolling out full-service lunch. The restaurant already offered lunch, but it was counter service only, and the new model will add Coquine’s uniquely neighborly service, as overseen by co-owner Ksandek Podbielski.

“We originally thought we’d be a coffeehouse,” Podbielski tells Eater, with a bashful grin; instead, Coquine has drawn the eye of everyone from the O, who named it its 2016 Restaurant of the Year, to the James Beard Awards, for which it was a semifinalist for 2016 Best New Restaurant. Now it’s a challenge to get a seat for dinner on Friday and Saturday nights, which makes lunch a prime opportunity to taste chef Katy Millard’s plates... and popsicles (Coquine’s current popsicle flavors include negroni, orange creamsicle, and pudding pops with a peanut-candy-ginger crumble).

Podbielski says the new service model will free up space at the counter, so those on the go can slip in for a coffee and house pastry (or the Coquine chocolate chip cookie), while others can grab a table and get ready to hear the day’s specials. Coquine’s lunch menu doesn’t offer the full range of dinner plates, but Millard doesn’t hold back, with things like potato gnocchi with artichokes, cherry-glazed pork short rib, and chicken salad on sourdough with green garlic aioli and spring onion relish. There’s also a rather luxurious daily special for two: a complete meal with a half bottle of wine for $72.

Tucked away on the north side of Mt. Tabor, Coquine’s full-service lunch is now available Monday through Friday, from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Breakfast remains a counter-service affair, beginning at 8 a.m. on weekdays. Weekends are still reserved for full-service brunch.

• Coquine [Official]
• All Previous Coquine Coverage [EPDX]