República, the groundbreaking tasting menu restaurant specializing in Mexican culinary legacy and influences, will close in February, owner Angel Medina has confirmed. The restaurant was a James Beard Award semifinalist and, as our critic Jordan Michelman called it, “one of the best Mexican restaurants on the West Coast, with storytelling and history proudly brought to the fore.”
República first opened in November 2020 as a collaboration between Medina, pastry chef Olivia Bartruff, and chef Lauro Romero, previously of King Tide Fish & Shell. Medina operated a coffee shop in the lobby of the EcoTrust building, where he welcomed pop-ups, including Romero’s Clandestino. The original idea behind República was to serve guisados and masa snacks during the day, as well as pastes, a pastry from Romero’s native Hidalgo; then, in the evenings, the space would morph into a wine and dessert bar, with pastries by Bartruff and wine pairings highlighting Mexican- and Latinx-owned wineries, as well as BIPOC and women winemakers. “Lauro was a chef at a hotel and I hated it because he was so fucking talented,” Medina recalls. “He became my centerpiece for everything.”
Over time, República evolved. Romero began serving a more serious tasting menu in the evenings, often featuring inventive moles incorporating Oregon-grown produce, memelitas with house nixtamalized masa, and evocative dessert courses. One dish, a tri-colored quesadilla filled with quesillo and served with an earthy-nutty salsa macha, became an iconic course on the tasting menu. Servers delivered each dish with historical or personal context, talking about foodways and cultural influences. It served ingredients hard to find on other Mexican restaurant menus around Portland, including chicatanas (ants) and huitlacoche (corn smut). A particularly memorable dish reimagined rice and beans as a chanterelle risotto with house nixtamalized beans, a process typically reserved for corn to make masa. The restaurant consistently offered takes on aguachile, exploring Japan’s influence on Mexican cuisine…