A Restaurant Inspired By The Coast Heads To SE Portland

Eclectic, seafood-heavy restaurant Normandie will open in the abandoned Rue space this October, with a team of talented folks behind it. Normandie will serve everything from oysters on the half-shell to charred octopus with peaches, all in an airy, 62-seat space.

Co-owners Judson Winquist, Amanda Cannon Winquist, and Heather Kintler worked together at Portland institution Veritable Quandary, which closed after 45 years in 2016. Winquist moved on to bartend at Laurelhurst Market, Cannon Winquist became the wine director at Veritable Quandary offshoot Q, and chef Kintler headed over to Side Yard Farm and Shalom Y’all. Over the next few years, the concept of Normandie came together. “It’s something we’ve talked about for a long time,” Winquist says. “We’ve been looking around for places for a while, but it all came together with a place we liked.”

Now, as the kitchen undergoes a small remodel, Kintler has begun working out a menu, featuring things like steamed mussels with bouillabaisse broth and ’nduja aioli, oxtail croquettes with apricot marmalade, and charred octopus with chorizo, peaches, and smoked olive oil. The chef sees the namesake as more of a thematic muse than an actual cuisine-based inspiration. “Heather says, for her, it has more to do with this idea of perseverance than the actual food from the region,” Winquist says. “But looking at it more in depth, they’re on a similar parallel. There’s some repetition in produce, bounty of the ocean... shellfish, mushrooms, things you think about from Normandy.”

Still, Winquist is also keeping things loose. He says the bar menu will likely change dramatically and often, though the happy hour menu will likely have a Calvados spritz. “We’re approaching it with a no-rules kind of thing — I’ll be switching up my bar menu quite a bit,” Winquist says. “ You might come in one day that the format and the drinks are completely different.”

• All Veritable Quandary coverage [EPDX]
• Rue Closes Shop After a Year and a Half [EPDX]
• All Rue coverage [EPDX]
• Veritable Quandary closes tonight, taking a piece of old Portland with it [The Oregonian]
• All Laurelhurst Market coverage [EPDX]