This is a first time bad review of a restaurant for me.
My husband and I had dinner at Castagna on October 29. We had been there previously and it was a favorite. But that was before the new chef, Matthew Lightner. The room is still elegant and subdued. The service was very good. Most of the food was so bad as to be an insult to the diners.
We each ordered an appetizer (from part 1 and part 2) of the menu and an entree.
Before the appetizers arrived we were served their homemade rolls with butter and pork fat. The rolls were very tasty, but very oily. The pork fat - described in a Willamette Week review as one of the best things on the menu (!) was just that - pork fat. ugh
My appetizer was described as Black Truffle with assorted other components. Could I have been wrong to assume that it would include some of the famed black truffle mushrooms? Apparently I was. I was served 3 black balls of an unknown vegetable that had been coated in ash. Ash. The taste was unpleasant and the mouth feel (cinders, anyone?) was worse. Not to mention the very unpleasant black mess it all left on my plate. My husband ordered an appetizer that included salmon, ash coated beets and grapefruit. He received a few slivers of salmon, several beets coated in black ash and another few slivers of grapefruit. Again, the ash was not a pleasant addition to the dish.
The entrees we ordered - duck and venison - were slightly better. The meat in both was tender and flavorful, but servings were quite small and the plates contained very little other than the meat except for a few bits of odd vegetables and again - some odd bits of ash.
I have to give kudos to the pear marinated in mead along with ""twigs"" and frozen meringue. Excellent. Not so the the roasted carrots, allegedly simmered in spices and served with whey sorbet. The carrots were without flavor and covered in some blackened substance - more ash? - the whey sorbet was equally without noticeable flavor.
I actually felt insulted that Mr. Lightner expected patrons of his restaurant to eat cinders.
My husband and I are fortunate to have visited most of Portland's and the Portland areas best restaurants. We are also fortunate to have had the opportunity to dine at some of the best restaurants in the US and have eaten at two Michelin starred restaurants in Lyon, France in the past six months. We know and enjoy excellent food. We did not find it at Castagna and we will not eat there again.
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