A new two-night pop-up called Birdfat is bringing duck fat doughnuts, fried chicken and live jazz to Portland's Central Eastside starting next Saturday, with a second dinner planned next month inside a converted 1913 laundry building. The series pairs Southern-inspired cooking with Oregon wine and cocktails built around rendered duck, chicken and goose fat, all set against the backdrop of a 1920s-style salon evening.
According to The Portland Tribune, Birdfat is presented by wine executive Tiquette Bramlett and chef Jonathan Biko Mandela Jones, who serves as estate chef at Bryn Mawr Vineyards. The paper reports the first evening lands next Saturday near Southeast Second Avenue and Salmon Street, with seating running from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Bryn Mawr Vineyards' own event listing, however, puts the address at 133 SE Salmon Street and lists a narrower window of 5 to 8 p.m., a discrepancy between the two published schedules.
À La Carte Menu Built Around Duck Fat, With a $10 Door
Birdfat's food and drinks are ordered à la carte rather than as a fixed-price tasting menu, and reservations to attend cost $10, per the same report. Dishes include pastrami duck breast served in a buttermilk biscuit and fried chicken skin paired with braised collards, burrata and hot honey. A duck fat doughnut is topped with goose fat lemon icing, butternut squash curd and smoked trout roe.
Bartender Iona Tong is serving inventive cocktails washed with chicken fat and duck fat, while wine pours come from both Bramlett's own label, Henderson Ave Wines, and Bryn Mawr Vineyards. Musician Edwin Coleman III is providing live jazz for the evening, featuring selections from Charlie Parker's songbook, in keeping with the pop-up's goal of encouraging a relaxed, communal experience.
Bramlett's Path From Opera Stages to Oregon Wine Leadership
Bramlett made industry history in May 2021 when she was hired to lead Compris Vineyard, formerly Vidon Vineyard, in Newberg — becoming the first Black woman appointed president of a winery in a major U.S. wine region, according to Portland Monthly. Before turning to wine, she trained as an opera singer and performed at the Sydney Opera House at age 19. The magazine reports she pivoted careers after a car accident and a thyroid cancer diagnosis at 24 affected her singing voice, and that her mother gave her a book on wine during treatment that helped spark the career change.
In 2020, Bramlett founded the nonprofit Our Legacy Harvested to increase BIPOC representation in the wine industry, and the organization launched an internship program in fall 2022 that provides lodging, transportation and hands-on vineyard experience, according to Oregon Wine Press. She was later named Vice President of Chosen Family Wines, a venture co-founded by former NBA champion Channing Frye, in May 2023, and she also sits on the executive leadership board of UC Davis's viticulture and enology school, per the UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology.
Chef Jones's Credentials and a New Home for Night Two
Jones, Bramlett's co-host, is a two-time James Beard Award semifinalist who works as estate chef at Bryn Mawr Vineyards in Salem. He already runs a monthly six-course wine and food pairing dinner series called Peak Harvest at the winery's Eola-Amity Hills property, according to Bryn Mawr Vineyards, giving him an established audience for the kind of pairing dinners Birdfat is built around.
Birdfat's second dinner is set for September 19 at Soho House Portland, the private club network's first Pacific Northwest outpost, which opened in March 2024 inside the historic Troy Laundry Building in the Central Eastside business district, as reported by Axios. The 1913 structure was designed in Colonial Revival style by Ellis F. Lawrence, founding dean of the University of Oregon School of Architecture, and served as the Pacific Northwest's largest commercial laundry facility until 1983 before its 2024 redevelopment into a social club, according to the Architectural Heritage Center.
Reviving a Harlem Renaissance Salon Tradition
The pop-up's format draws directly on the salons that arts patron A'Lelia Walker popularized in the 1920s at her Manhattan townhouse, known as "The Dark Tower," where she hosted writers including Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, per the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Walker was the daughter of Madam C.J. Walker, recognized as America's first self-made female millionaire.
The pairing of Bramlett and Jones carries added weight in an industry where representation remains rare: data from the Association of African American Vintners reported in 2022 found that less than 1% of winemakers across the United States are Black, according to OPB. Oregon's own history includes Bertony Faustin, who established the state's first Black-owned winery in 2008.
Whether Birdfat continues beyond the September dinner hasn't been announced, and it's not yet clear how its à la carte structure will compare with the multi-course, fixed-price format more typical of high-end winemaker dinners.
