More surprising still, I was sitting at the ancient gnarled counter of Le Bistro Montage in the naked light of day, which is a little like basking in the sun with the Vampire Lestat. Surprisingly, it was pretty good: sliced thin and cooked crisp, a poor-man’s BLT cushioned by blankets of lettuce, red onion and tomato between pieces of toast. On the third visit I broke down and ordered the fried Spam sandwich. May a jazz band march you to your grave.ĭAY SHIFT DINER: Montage’s down-and-dandy lunch Here, then, is my Day Shift Diner ode to the vagrant pleasures of Montage, as it ran in The Oregonian on May 5, 2006. A joint it definitely was – one of the city’s best, and one whose loss many people, old and young, are going to mourn.
Homely Montage was not, although its decorative brilliance was hardly of the Architectural Digest sort. It also, for a while, served weekday lunches, and those days happened to coincide with the time that I was doing a stretch at The Oregonian writing a column called Day Time Diner, in which I explored the highs and lows of morning and midday dining in Portland, sometimes at high-end places but with the column’s affections definitely teetering toward the wayward attractions of the homely joint. Late at night it howled, and when you went there it was often for two seemingly contradictory reasons: because it was familiar and comfortable and you knew what to expect and because chances were better than fair something totally unanticipated might explode. Montage, a sort-of Cajun joint tucked in a delicately fading old brick building below the east side of the Morrison Bridge, was one of those Portland places, a legend in the perpetual making, a place for hipsters and anti-hipsters and your country cousins in to see the town a time-bending passageway from Old Portland to New. Lizzie Acker has a few details on The Oregonian/Oregon Live. And I write “was” because, as several news sources have reported today, as of today it is no longer. This story will be updated with more information.It was called, officially, Le Bistro Montage, although for decades most Portlanders have called it just Montage. Even its location, tucked covertly under in a vintage red brick building under the Morrison bridge added to its sense of authenticity, especially as it stayed open late into the evening as other places closed up for the night.
Its long, shared tables meant that diners often bumped shoulders with strangers in a way that few other Portland restaurants offered, predating the communal dining fad of the early 2000s.
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Its Cajun-adjacent menu was perhaps less of a draw than its atmosphere, with ribald servers in crisp white jackets bantering with diners, bellowing oyster shot orders to the kitchen, and folding up leftover bowls of spicy mac and cheese or alligator tail in tinfoil roses and animals.
Since the restaurant opened in 1992, Bistro Montage was a haven for post-show diners, high school cast parties, first dates, and family gatherings. “We depart with the special feeling that most Portlanders have a memorable Montage story-whether it was a first date or the last stop after a night on the town,” the post reads. The restaurant’s team posted on Facebook this morning, announcing that it would permanently close its doors after 27 years of service due to financial struggles with COVID-19. Fans of late-night bowls of macaroni and cheese, oyster shots, and jambalaya have a reason to be sad today - Le Bistro Montage will not reopen after the coronavirus pandemic ends.
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