Sink Your Teeth Into Tusk

There’s a restaurant here in Portland that has gotten a lot of love. It was featured no. 8 on Food & Wine’s 2017 Restaurants of the Year and named Eater’s restaurant of the year for 2017. It is featured in an April 10th Eater article, “The 38 Essential Portland Restaurants, Spring 2018.”

I’m talking about Tusk.

I admit that when I first heard rumors about Tusk’s anticipated opening, I was skeptical. A Middle Eastern restaurant run by White guys called “Tusk”?! Not again, Portland. Initially, I rolled my eyes imagining the worst: some sort of hipster appropriation of Middle Eastern food.  I imagined American trophy hunters reducing beautiful, wild elephants into a singular commodity. A Tusk. Tisk, tisk.

Turns out the restaurant is, in fact, named after the 1979 Fleetwood Mac album, Tusk. According to a write up on SongFacts (2018) about the album’s name and title track says, “The ‘Tusk’ is slang for penis so the song is basically about sex.” Yeah. Thorny. I know.

The following quote from SongFacts (2018) shows Stevie Knicks and I shared a similar reaction to the word “tusk”:

Stevie Nicks recalled to Mojo in 2015: “I didn’t understand the title, there was nothing beautiful or elegant about the word ‘tusk.’ It really brought to mind those people stealing ivory. Even then, in 1979 you just thought, the rhinos are being poached and that tusks are being stolen and the elephants are being slaughtered and ivory is being sold on the black market. I don’t recall it being (Mick’s slang term for the male member), that went right over my prudish little head. I wasn’t told that until quite a while after the record was done, and when I did find out I liked the title even less!”

Ha! Nicks’s comment makes me like my title for this post even more! If we’re going to play the double entendre game, I will smugly return that serve. Pow. But, this review isn’t about dirty names for eateries. It’s not about being risqué. It’s about risk.

Copy on the restaurant’s website describes the menu created by Executive chef Sam Smith as “Vegetable-driven Middle Eastern.” But, to understand what this even means – how these words even translate into inspired bites on the plate, you have got to go to Tusk and eat.

I’m neither a food writer nor a restaurant critic, but I think what Tusk is doing for vegetables – and their local sources – is admirable and quietly revolutionary.

In a June 2017 interview with From The Vine’s Jenn Virskus, Tusk Exec. Chef Sam Smith cites growing up in Northern California next door to Persian neighbors and working and eating alongside chef Michael Solomonov – the host and narrator of the 2016 Roger Sherman doc, In Search of Israeli Cuisine – as major influences.  Smith even traveled to Israel with Solomonov for a two-week eating and tasting tour.

But, don’t be fooled. Smith isn’t really trying to represent traditional Israeli cuisine at Tusk – if there even is such a thing – (if you’ve watched the doc on Netflix, you know what I mean).  In a quote from Virskus’s article Smith states,  “Because I’m not attached to the idea of recreating traditional dishes, it gives me a lot of creative liberty. I’ll look to see what a farmer brings us and then I’ll see how I want to prepare it and how I can make that my own. Sometimes the end result is a dish that has nothing to do with tradition at all but I’ll be using some of the flavors,”

Rock on, dude! I love that the cuisine at Tusk sort of defies being any one thing. It’s easy to imagine how an executive chef and his fellow restauranteurs could get pinned down into trying to define exactly what the f they are going to be doing in their new restaurant.  I mean, people need to know what they’re going to be getting. People need to know what they are paying for. Don’t they? 

Magnolia blooming outside of Tusk

As a child born and raised in the multicultural, multiethnic context of Hawai`i– a clichéd “melting pot” of cultural identity and food – I love that Tusk and its cuisine sit in this sort of gray area of “What is it?” and “What are you?” – an area I'm all too familiar with. 

Yes, there’s fresh pita, and hummus is a staple. On the table sit a trio of condiments: allepo chili oil, cumin salt and zaatar. I’m no officianado of Middle Eastern cuisine, but beyond these constants I detect a lot of Sam Smith’s creative liberties.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the custom featured menu items created for special events at Tusk.  My first visit to Tusk was for local Portland blogger and social media influencer Alison Wu’s Wu Haus event. Customized menu items that weekend included a smoothie bowl with a cauliflower and coconut base, a date smoothie with allepo chili, a chia parfait, and a quinoa bowl.

My second visit to Tusk was for last weekend’s High Vibrational Cap Beauty event. Menu items included nori-wrapped warm dates – aka “Angels on Horseback” – a hippie grain bowl featuring brown rice and mung beans, and a fresh spring vegetable platter with coconut mayonnaise and miso dipping sauces. At both of these events, I was able to eat incredibly interesting, inspiring, and indulgent vegetable-forward meals while avoiding all of my food allergies.  Tusk yeah!

Perhaps in an act of balance – yin to yang ­­– the dudes behind Tusk went for the feel of a “modern and feminine space” (according to the website) save for the giant black and white print of banana hammock-clad Keith Richards floating in a pool mounted like a welcome beacon above the bar.

Honestly, I find the space to be utterly beautiful and inspiring. It’s light and airy with lots of natural light. The color palette is fresh with lots of white and gentle pastels, down to the custom ceramic mugs, plates, and bowls handmade by local artists. A gorgeous floral arrangement always graces the bar. There are all of these little touches. Scrumptious details. Like the metal handle on the front-restaurant-facing door which is sleeved in caramel-colored leather.

The totality of the dining experience at Tusk makes me think there’s more to idea behind the name than just the one Fleetwood Mac track. Tusk the restaurant feels more like an entire album. Smooth, chill rock with just the right amount of sharp edge.

Pitchfork’s Amanda Petrusich begins her review of Fleetwood Mac’s 1979 LP Tusk with the following statement:  “Fleetwood Mac’s beautiful and terrifically strange 1979 LP Tusk poses the question: What happens when love dissipates, and you have to find a new thing to believe in? What if that thing is work?”

Perhaps we can apply Petrusich's questions to Tusk the restaurant, too. What happens when love of the traditional American meat-with-two-sides entrée dissipates? Maybe the “new thing “ we’ve got to start believing in is unfussy, local, seasonal vegetable-forward cuisine. And, if “that thing” turns out to be more work, I for one am glad that Tusk is bravely hoeing the way forward ;)