Every March, during Portland Dining Month, locals and visitors can dine their way around the city. Plan a trip March 2019, or anytime, to enjoy Ataula, a Barcelona-style tapas eatery. Writer Bobbie Hasselbring offers up some temptation for where to eat in Portland. 

Butifarra: Pork sausage tops a scrumptious Catalan bean salad as the Portland Dining Month’s entrée offering.

Foodies-in-the-know are well aware that Portland, Oregon, is a food town filled with young chefs and seasoned pros alike turning the Northwest’s bounty into creative, innovative feasts. But with new restaurants constantly popping up, how do you keep up? One way is Portland Dining Month, the city’s pay-one-price celebration of local restaurants that takes place during the month of March. It’s a great way to explore new restaurants—without breaking the bank. One of our top choices was Ataula, a Barcelona-style tapas eatery in the happening 23^rd Street neighborhood.

This Portland Dining Month event drew 120 participating restaurants across the city. For a set price of $33, each restaurant creates a pre-fixe, three-course menu with special dishes or selections from the regular menu. Generally, Dining Month menus consist of a starter/salad course, entrée, and dessert.

Ataula, situated just off busy 23^rd Street on the quieter north end of the trendy area, is a popular, neighborhood eatery with a casual vibe. There’s a long bar where patrons enjoy craft cocktails and tapas and plenty of four-top tables that were packed even early on a Wednesday night. Colorfully splashy modern paintings and big windows overlooking the street keep the industrial-looking space hip and urban without being pretentious.

The restaurant is the brainchild of the combined talents of Spanish-born chef Jose Chesa, owner/chef Cristina Baez, and general manager Emily Metivier. All three come with backgrounds in fine dining and a love for tapeo culture and Northwest ingredients. The result is a refreshing twist on Spanish tapas.

We met our friend, Mike, a fellow foodie, who was already seated and enjoying a pretty pink Spanish gin cocktail that he described as “unbelievably refreshing” when we arrived. Throughout our meal, the service was wonderfully attentive without being intrusive. Several staff waited on us and there wasn’t a moment without a filled glass, an extra plate or anything else we desired.

Both photographer Anne Weaver and I ordered the Dining Month Special. However, the menu regularly features Iberico ham and Anne couldn’t resist so she also ordered the ham plate served with pan con tomate (tomato bread). For $19, we were served a generous portion of thinly-sliced, slightly salty Iberico along with four big pieces of rustic, crunchy toasted bread topped with fresh chopped tomatoes and good quality EVOO. We were off to a great start.

Iberico Jamon, aged four years, accompanied by crusty toasted bread topped with tomato and olive oil offers a taste of Spain on a platter.

Intrigued by Mike’s cocktail, Anne and I ordered mocktails (a bargain at $5 each) that came with muddled fresh mint sprigs. They were deliciously fruity, limey, and utterly thirst-quenching.

Mike had planned to make a meal out of tapas ($6-15 each) until he spotted a pan of seafood paella. So he opted for a single tapa—four salt cod croquettes served with smoky piquillo ali-oli. Fortunately, for us, Mike shared. The golf-ball-sized fritters were eggshell thin and super crispy outside and melt-in-the-mouth silky-salty inside. The ali-oli added a creamy, smoky note. This was heaven. I could almost make a meal out of a plate of these delights.

Croquetas: Salt-cod fritters served with piquillo ali-oli featured a crispy exterior and melt-in-your-mouth filling.

Portland Dining Month Special

The first course of our Dining Month menu was Remolacha, a big salad loaded with organic greens, beets, piquillo pepper-goat cheese cream, and thinly-sliced, wine-infused pears. It was topped with crispy quinoa and lightly dressed with a slightly vinegary dressing. The mixture was an interesting blend of flavors and textures with the delicate pears adding a sweet pop and the crispy quinoa lending a fun crunch.

Remolacha: Wine infused pears sliced paper thin, pepper-goat cheese cream and crispy quinoa turned the starter salad into a star.

Next came our entrée, a four-inch Butifarra sausage atop a Catalan-style bean salad composed of white beans, broccolini, and pine nuts. I thought the entrée was rather small, but the sausage flavor was outstanding—super juicy with just the right blend of porky flavor and spices. The sausage completely filled my mouth with flavor and the bean salad made a nice compliment to the richness of the sausage.

While we enjoyed our Butifarra sausage, Mike’s seafood paella for two arrived in a wide paella pan and, fortunately for us, he let us sample. The seafood, which was perfectly cooked, included prawns, mussels, calamari and clams. The bomba rice appeared darker than normal paella, which we later found out was due to the chef’s use of lobster fumet, condensed seafood broth with tomato sauce added. It gave the rice a deeply rich seafood flavor. The rice also featured plenty of socarrat, the crispy bottom-of-the-pan bits so prized by paella lovers. Jose Chesa is one of those rare chefs who knows how to cook paella.

Lobster fumet is the secret ingredient in the cooked-to-perfection Paella Ataula.

Our meal ended with Bocata, two small chocolately cookies sandwiched with silky olive oil ice cream. While the cookies were crumbly and a bit dry, the ice cream was absolutely sensual, not overly sweet with a texture that was so, so sexy. Wow! I’d have loved a bowl of this delectable ice cream.

Creamy, sensual olive oil ice cream is the surprising star of the Bocata dessert.

Real Bottom Line: Ataula is a solid entry into Portland, Oregon’s extensive food scene. The atmosphere is fun and welcoming; flavors are delectable; and the service is some of the best in the city. We’d definitely come back, especially for their incredible salt cod croquettes. Next time, we’re going to further explore their extensive tapas menu because this is a place where the tapas will transport you right to Barcelona. Ole!

Mark Your Calendars: Portland Dining Month happens every year throughout March. It’s a great way to discover new dining favorites in a town filled with many interesting places to eat. Take advantage of the pre-fixe menus for an affordable $33 per person. Mark your calendars now for 2019 and start making Portland Dining Month one of your food traditions. If you make your reservation through www.travelportland.com/dining-month/ a portion of the money goes to support the Portland Food Bank. For more information, www.travelportland.com

–Bobbie Hasselbring, RFT Contributor, photos by Anne Weaver

Read about another Portland Dining Month experience at Lechon, Portland.

And for ideas for other things to do when in Portland, consider getting 100 Things to Do in Portland Before You Die, linked here, to our Amazon Affiliates page for convenience.