Look Inside the Soon-to-Open, Rustic-Elegant Tasty n Daughters

Tasty n Daughters, the new version of Tasty n Sons in the former Woodsman Tavern space, is getting ready to open on SE Division, but stepping inside feels like a far cry from the original restaurant on N Williams. The perpetually busy, global restaurant known for its brunch small plates has gone from casual-industrial to Northwest rustic elegance, with a new waiting lounge, Turkish fare, and house-made pastas.

Last year, co-owners John Gorham and Renee Gorham (Toro Bravo, Shalom Y’all) announced that the would close the original Tasty n Sons in North Portland, taking over the closing Woodsman Tavern on SE Division. Tasty n Sons is a brunch essential in Portland, regularly accruing long lines of locals seeking shakshuka and potatoes bravas. Its impending move south slapped a band-aid over the loss of Duane Sorenson’s long-treasured Southern restaurant, which was known for its whiskey, country ham, and fried chicken.

The new Tasty retains much of the Southeast Portland tavern’s original charm — the rustic feel of the dining room remains intact, as well as the restaurant’s six original booths, brick, and touches of hazelnut brown. The team added new light fixtures, mahogany tables, and tufted leather booths, upping the overall lodge feel of the room.

Dina Avila/EPDX

Dina Avila/EPDX

Dina Avila/EPDX

Dina Avila/EPDX

Those who’ve visited one of the Gorhams’ Tasty restaurants — either the original Williams location or Tasty n Alder downtown — know that brunch crowds are often substantial. At Tasty n Daughters, the inevitable queue of wait-listers have a new space to lounge: The R&R room, formerly the Woodsman Tavern’s market-turned-private event space, has a number of couches and chairs for hungry diners, as well as a small menu of snacks and booze. “Hotel restaurants are so hot right now; we we wanted to create that hotel lobby feeling in there,” Renee Gorham says. The subway-tile-lined room gets some warmth from rich brown leather and several Turkish rugs, including one that hangs on the wall like a tapestry.

Dina Avila/EPDX

Dina Avila/EPDX

The Turkish rugs play off the restaurant’s newfound Turkish influence, inspired by a family trip to Istanbul. Both the brunch and dinner menus have souvenirs from the vacation, including two versions of what John Gorham calls “Turkish pizza.”

“Since I opened the first Tasty n Sons, I’ve been on the search for how other cultures eat breakfast. That’s how we found the Burmese pork stew, the shakshuka,” the chef explains. “Istanbul has a really rich breakfast culture. One of the first things we had there was the pide, with the baked egg in it, the eggplant, the peppers — it blew my mind. I knew I wanted to bring that back.”

In the mornings, the restaurant serves a pide with baked egg, feta, red peppers and onion; at night, the restaurant swaps its pide for lahmacun, a flatter version the Gorhams serve with ground beef. Another Turkish dish on the dinner menu is the restaurant’s dumplings, manti filled with beef and lamb dumplings with garlic yogurt sauce and smoky urfa pepper.

The manti is only one of the restaurant’s several new pasta dishes, made fresh in-house. The rest of the pastas are traditional Italian classics — clam linguini, bucatini amatriciana — excluding the restaurant’s macaroni and cheese, a version from the restaurant’s original location now made with fresh noodles. The brunch menu includes a smaller selection of pastas, including its eggy carbonara.

Beyond his trips to Italy and Turkey, the chef borrows from his early years abroad, as well. When he lived in Ghana in his 20s, John Gorham would visit the beaches every weekend for doughnuts fried over open flame. His brunch menu has a version of those Ghanaian doughnuts with pineapple jam, as well as a few other doughnuts — the beignets, for instance, are a nod to one of his daughters’ favorite treats. The restaurant’s named for them, after all.

Tasty n Daughters officially opens March 1. Take a look at the restaurant’s menus below.

• Tasty n Daughters [Official]
• Tasty n Daughters [Facebook]
• Brunch menu [Official]
• Dinner menu [Official]
• Wine list [Official]
• Brunch Essential Tasty n Sons Will Move to SE Division [EPDX]
• After Seven Years, Southeast Portland Favorite The Woodsman Tavern Will Close This Weekend [EPDX]