Fin

Alright, so I know they closed damn near when dinosaurs walked the Earth, but I was going through my old bookmarks and decided that they needed a little cleaning up.
Sue me
I was here for their prix fixe New Year’s Eve menu… and it was amazing! The dishes were small, but profuse and the fish was fresher than you were that one drunken night in Tijuana… trust me on this.
The service was polished, beautiful and spot on. Now, it wasn’t cheap, but wtf do you care now? They’re closed!!!
Damn shame… I see more really good places go down due to poor planning and/​or management (Anyone remember Roux and Sweetwater’s Jamhouse?).
Here’s hoping that krew finds a soft place to land… they deserve it.

Per Portland Food and Drink newsletter (Monday’s — 17^th), which I’ve always found ultra reliable, FIN IS CLOSING AS OF DINNER SERVICE ON FEBRUARY 14.
My four star review here is not for the news of Fin’s closing, but for what Fin is.
Gone too soon, Fin, we barely knew ye.
So if you’re a Fin fan or want to dive in at Fin before it’s too late, just a Unilocal shout out tip that it looks like you need to get in the door before the doors close for good at end of service on Valentine’s Day.

Sadly Fin is c’est fini after Valentine’s Day…

Fin — a surface used to produce lift or to steer.
Fin — an appendage extending from the body of a fish.
Fin — Spanish for end, completion, termination.
They all seem to fit for my evening there for my experience there lifted my spirits, I dined on some tantalizing seafood, and it was a nice end to my day.
But what I am smiling most about is that I beat my friend Jen K to a new cool place in Portland — not an easy task given that she seems to find them quite easily and the fact she lives there while I only visit every couple of months. So it is rare these days that I get to a new place first, even though I have been haunting PDX streets since blues was coming out the door of the Dandelion on 23^rd (early 90’s) and … well, you get the picture.
Back to Fin … the scoop and my experience.
First of all, make reservations. The place is quite small and there is little room to wait around for an opening. I was by myself, on a mid-​week night, and showed up around 8:30 — so I got in right away at the counter/​bar seats.
The counter/​bar is a little funky, and I like funky. If you sit here, the four chairs on the left face the small bar itself with the kitchen right to your left quite visible through an open wall. Then the counter zigs a little and there are four more chairs that basically face a couple of 2 person booths. It is a little awkward when seated by yourself facing a couple of people, but fortunately the little zig in the counter made it easy for me to see into the kitchen and the action there.
Seating is limited (told you, small place) with about 3 or 4 two person booths, a couple of 4 tops, and a larger table for about 10. This may not be the configuration they always have, and since I had 2 Manhattans my memory may be off.
Speaking of the Manhattans — very well made and Susie, the waitress/​server, knows her bourbon which is impressive. They are stirred properly (not shaken), and the cherry used is very very tasty (I forgot to ask about it). And when I contemplated out-​loud that I felt like a Manhattan but wasn’t sure if it went well with the food on the menu, her response was classic «I think a Manhattan goes with everything.»
Service was prompt, efficient and not rushed. Susie was knowledgeable about every item on the menu, knew the sprits behind the bar from memory, and was quite engaging and friendly. And besides, any woman that knows her bourbon has a place in my heart. But alas, I am already spoken for.
So after some pondering and a few well answered questions and well detailed descriptions from Susie, I chose the tuna carpaccio, the blue snapper, and the miso caramel tart for desert. All three items were prepared quite well with interesting and masterful mixtures of flavors.
Will I return? definitely. Recommend Fin to friends? definitely.
Rating — 4 stars. It just didn’t blow me away enough to give it 5 stars from just 1 visit. When I return, if things are as good as this time, maybe they will get upgraded.
So Jen, if you read this, enjoy your birthday dinner there tonight. Oh — Happy Birthday.
And 1 more thing — Go Cal !!!

Sorry to be the dissenter in all this love but our experience with Fin was not all that. It was not really bad but very hit or miss.
The hits:
A raw tuna with ponzu sauce that was meltingly delicious.
The tuna hot plate which was poached in oil topped with lardo and served with potato galettes, mushrooms and truffles. A lot of rich earthy ingredients that one might not expect to blend but this dish was perfection. Each ingredient stood on its own or worked in perfect harmony with the others. If this had been the only dish we ate it would be 5 stars.
The misses:
No radicchio salad. At 6:45pm? Seriously? Ok, I’ll let that one go as a shopping or menu correction mistake but quite disappointing.
The squid ink pasta with albacore and nori. The pasta was good but the tuna and nori tasted like canned tuna. Not appealing.
The butterfish wrapped in duck confit. Again, very earthy rich ingredients but this pairing simply did not work. Both the fish and the duck were cooked to perfection but together tasted musty and almost unpleasant. Finally, we pulled it apart and I ate the fish while my husband had the duck. He also enjoyed the crispy rice.
Beyond that the wait staff is friendly but while I like the 80s background music it is so loud that conversation is difficult– at least for us old folks. Also the bar/​communal table running down the middle of the room makes it even noisier.

Not only is the food delicious but it is also beautiful to look at.
The menu which changes from time to time is divided into «raw» and hot plates. The small beautiful plates are made for sharing and each dinner gets a separate plate on which he/​she can sample from the choices. Our raw plates included tuna carpaccio and ceviche both delicious. The highlight was the butterfish surrounded by duck confit and crispy duck skin. We also had the grilled scallops, crisp on the outside but cooked toward the rare side. Also in the bowl was a 60 minute egg yolk, wild mushrooms and a parmigiano reggiano broth. This will certainly be one of our favorite restaurants.

WOW… This place lives up to the hype. We had an excellent experience from the atmosphere and helpful staff to the phenomenal cuisine. The menu is divided into raw plates and hot plates. The dishes are meant to share. There wasn’t anything we didn’t like. Highlights for us included the gnocchi which was so decadent it should be on the dessert menu and the BUTTERFISH which was hands down the best fish I have ever had.
I also enjoyed the atmosphere. It was low lit with candles on the tables and 80’s music in the background. Love it!
Fin is not to be missed. I would not hesitate to recommend this place to anyone :)

the ceviche is the first thing you should start with. each bite IS to be discussed.
jma (the girlfriend) and me, have decided that this is the best seafood we’ve ever had. period. i ordered COOKED scallops ‘off the menu’ without hassle or question. so, needless to say the the server was VERY well informed and helpful.
we decided, after leaving, that we would start AND end with the ceviche every visit thereafter.

FIN servers up phenomenal fish worthy of 6-​stars! Fine dining in an modern yet warm atmosphere at very reasonable prices! Their bufferfish was best fish dish I’ve ~EVER~ had.
Their concise menu is divided into two sections — raw plates & hot plates — with about 6 offerings in each category. The majority of them are small to medium-​sized so plan on ordering 2 – 3 of them per person. For me, two plates and a dessert was the perfect amount of food.
Round 1: Thai-​style Ono ceviche with ginger, mint, cilantro, pistachios & dried shrimp. Visually stunning, spicy, and thoroughly delicious!
Round 2: Porcini-​dusted butterfish topped with bone marrow and greens, garnished with shallot marmalade and olive oil. I can’t even think of the superlatives to justly describe this dish. Simply incredible! It was a perfectly harmonious confluence of ingredients showcasing the melt-​in-​your-​mouth butterfish. I literally scraped the plate clean with my fork and the waitress playfully teased me about the fact. I’m drooling just remembering this one.
Round 3: Chocolate tart with miso caramel. This was the only «sweet» dessert on their menu so I was honestly expecting it to suck, but suck it did not — it was fantastic! The bitter-​sweet dark chocolate was rich and luxurious. The copious amounts of caramel thickly drizzled on dish scared me initially because I thought it was going to be the typical overpoweringly-​sweet variety, but it had the perfect level of sweetness to complement the tart and I scooped up ever last bit of it.
The atmosphere was modern and lacked a little warmth, but the service was good and my server did a wonderful job of explaining the dishes and giving recommendations.
Tip: Menu on their website is out of date. Go to their blogspot for the current offerings:
.

This place has all 5 star reviews? Well, every party has to have a pooper, and today that pooper is me! Damn.
Allow me to set the scene:
Date night. Long freaking week. What do we need? Obviously an amazing dinner of seafood, cocktails, and atmosphere. Cue the Unilocal search, which tells me that we must go to Fin for our great ocean-​fare experience. So we ressie up and head over there.
First impression: decidedly awkward! You walk in, and there is no hint of a vestibule. It’s a pretentious clump of tables and people; there is no place to wait. My date & I eventually stand mashed together about 8 inches from a four-​top of strangers eating in the back, next to the hot beverage station. Granted, the forced intimacy wasn’t the worst thing in the world in retrospect, but this was ridiculous!
Our reservation was then downgraded to chairs at the bar, where I used the paper menu to flick rice off the seat. Classy. Our server advised that plates were intended to share, so we ordered three to start, and wine.
What followed was me basically getting snookered while waiting nearly an hour for actual food. Sure, they’ll give you bread about 30 minutes in, but this is a tease. It’s good, with handmade salts to pinch over the butter. And you start to think, it’s gonna be OK! The salmon is coming! We’ll probably eat!
Then the salmon (that they recommend sharing!) arrives, and it’s two ounces. MAX. Yes, it’s a very good two ounces, hence the delightful star up there. But 50 minutes for two ounces? That’s attitude, and it’s insulting. It’s self-​aggrandizing, and all of the plates we tried were this way. I guess conceptual, pretentious food «art» is just not our thing.
So y’know what? BONUS second star for proximity to Hot Lips pizza, where we mitigated the booze with actual calories.
Hey, no worries. Every city needs new places for budding anorexics to hone their craft.

OH SO five-​star worthy! We tried 6 dishes and each one was excellent. The butterfish dusted with porcini was my favorite. But then there were those gnocchi — the best I’ve had anywhere. They define «melt in your mouth». Oh, and the stripped marlin carpaccio. Unbelievably thinly sliced and so flavorful. The salmon was very good, but the risotto and enoki mushroom accompaniment were to die for. I will admit that the poached pear dessert was nothing to write home about, but I’m not a big dessert guy anyway. I love the geometry of this relatively small place — the way the bar flows into the communal seating table and how that whole thing divides up the room to more intimacy. The service really couldn’t have been better. The three of us were thoroughly blown away.

First I’m going to tell you how our dinner ended. $ 115 for four with a bottle of wine, one raw octopus app, 4 hot plates, two desserts and a french press coffee. I start here because you should know that this will be a bit more than a bar tab and you won’t be taking home leftovers for lunch. In fact, if you leave anything but the shine on the plate and a wet fork, you’re a better man/​woman than I.
Now back to the beginning.
Spicy octopus: One bite per person, melt in your mouth, eye-​rolling magic.
Gnocci/​mushrooms: The floatiest, pillowiest gnocci I’ve ever eaten.
Stone pot: Raw fish, slowly cooking from the heat of the stone pot, an egg yolk on rice with greens and some other goodies. Tasty!
Butterfish: This was a rectangular slab of fish perfectly seared on all sides with awesome sauce (more bread please!, Thank you.), Mmmmmelted in your mmmmouth!
Seafood noodle soup: Clams, mussels, squid ink noodles. No soup leftover.
Choco-​miso caramel: I’ll eat salty chocolate anytime, anywhere
Rosemary oil cake: Lighter and fluffier than I expected.
Coffee was excellent.
I hope this place makes it. The food (as others have also mentioned) is top quality, inventive and gorgeous. The service was attentive and professional. Don’t come if you’re looking for a big ol’ pile of anything, you’ll be unhappy. That would be like going to Pix Patisserie and expecting giant slabs of German Chocolate Cake. It would be like going to Beast and expecting Brazilian Churrascaria.
It was a light dinner full of the tastiest treats. If you’re a vegetarian, call before you go, there are precious few vegetables on the menu. Next time, mmmmore plates, mmmmore wine and and mmmore Mmmmm’s.

First review:
Want to know what the best new restaurant of 2010 is? FIN hands down is the winner.
I honestly cannot believe that this place is this good. We recently returned from a food orgy in NYC where we were eating at 5 – 7 different places a day — from hole in the walls to high end JBF award winners. FIN equals some of the best we had there for ½ — the price.
The dishes are very inventive, simply elegant, beautifully plated and absolutely delicious. There are a few things on the menu that I would not be surprised to have a place like French Laundry. Melt in my mouth goodness.
There are a mix of small and medium plates, hot and cold, cooked and raw. We usually order 2 – 4 person and share them around the table — or fight over the morsels more like.
I have to add that some of the sauces under the fish are almost better than the fish. I found that I was nearly licking the plate and definitely ate more bread than usual just so I could ensure that every drop was consumed.
And the staff is very knowledgeable about the food preparation and can easily pair a variety of wines and cocktails to match.
I have eaten just about everything on the menu at least once and have been back a few times with friends and work mates. I did not know that fish could be this good.
Definitely go! Best new restaurant in 2010!

Few times a year we hit a restaurant that we just fall in love with. FIN happens to be the most recent. The place is cozy, hip and tended to by some folks that believe in the place and what they are doing. And what are they doing? They are doing is turning out some of the most amazing food I have ever eaten.
Tip: The Ceviche. You know ceviche? The lime soaked tomato cocktail sauced crap with overcooked fish? This isn’t that. What FIN serves is this orgasmic combination of thai flavors, FRESH fish and spice. Quite possibly the most amazing thing I’ve feasted on. EVER.
Our main courses were the cocoa butterfish and the halibut cheek.
Both were super simple in presentation but crammed so full of flavor that Alton Brown would give himself an aneurysm trying to figure out they got that much flavor into the dish. I know Iron Chef Morimoto would eat the fish here and he would yell OH MY GOD in japanese before his head exploded in amazement.
Eat FIN.
Buy the kitchen staff a round, and tell them Vegas sent you:)
FIN I heart you.

Best seafood restaurant in Portland. Marlin carpaccio. Cocoa-​dusted butterfish (even more awesome than it sounds). Spaghetti and (fish) meatballs. Everything blew us away. Even the vegetarian dish and the non-​alcoholic cocktail for our pregnant friend. It’s clear they care about everything they serve. Nothing feels half-​assed.
And now they have foie, so I’ll be back sooner than I planned. I’m really grateful to have this place in town.

Hands down this is one of the best restaurants in Portland.
Every time we eat at Fin we take a bite and then discuss it… take another bite and discuss it again. We can’t believe what we are eating it is THAT good. The combinations are sometimes complex and sometimes simple, but always surprising in a very good way. We also really appreciate how they cater to dietary issues. My partner has a gluten intolerance, a sensitivity to garlic, an allergy to dairy proteins, and is a dedicated pescatarian. They are wonderful about modifying dishes to satisfy him and me. The modifications don’t detract from the dishes at all.
We find the best way to participate is to order as many dishes as we think we can handle and then share. The portions are small by design, but immensely packed with flavor. We savor every bite and can’t wait for the next dish to arrive. It is such a treat to be able to sample so many different dishes this way.
The atmosphere is wonderful, the service staff gracious and knowledgeable; we always get exceptional service. Combine that with how ridiculously wonderful the food is and we are in total heaven.

Fan-f***ing-tactic food. Lick-​every-​plate-​clean good food — at one point my mouth was assaulted by eight flavours at once. Each dish is presented pretty simply but is incredibly complex.
What’s even more awesome, they change up the specific dishes every week or two — not so much that you won’t be able to find something that fits the same dietary needs/​desires as last time, but enough that I get new and amazing surprises every time I visit.
The staff are very interested in your reactions to the food and are happy to accommodate any dietary restrictions you may have. I’ve been twice and presented them with the gut-​busting dairy, gluten and garlic hat-​trick and they’ve been super-​helpful in keeping me from having an uncontrollable gastro-​intenstinal event each time.
Hell, even the cocktails are worth a quick trip to Google to find out all the special treats they combine to concoct your palate-​pleaser.
This is the place to treat ourselves to the feeling that we are incredibly unique and deserve first-​class flavour wonders.

Ditto.
(Yep, after seeing the star ranking and reading the other reviews, that pretty much sums it up.)
From my point of view, I loved the Disney/​Pixar classic ‘Finding Nemo’ as much as the next guppy, but let’s be honest — I’d rather find Nemo on a plate next to navel orange confit, fennel caponata, and 30 year balsamic. Oh yeah, and dusted with cocoa for that extra special kick.
When the cocktails involved Cynar and the bread and butter came with four different tasting salts (beet, citrus, cocoa and anise,) I knew it was going to be a good night. I’ll admit that I was expecting a review-​inflation let down, but Fin is everything Unilocaled about and more. It reel-​y was that good. (Nice one Laura, nice.)

Amazing. Went there tonight. The space looks similar to Sel Gris but with a really great update. Very bright and airy, but with the same spotless open kitchen.
The service is incredibly warm and friendly, and our adorable server, Maggie, was full of information and had great advice. We ordered 6 dishes between the 2 of us. She told us that the dishes were meant to share, and they would come out as they were ready. Bring it on!
We started with the bottarga and lardons salad. It was absolutely perfect. Probably one of the better salads that we have ever eaten. Next was the spicy marlin wrapped octopus. 3 perfect portions. Delicious. Third was my personal favorite: cocoa rubbed butterfish with a fennel caponata. This is an absolutely incredible dish. The fish was perfectly cooked, the orange was perfect, the caponata was divine. I could eat that all day. Next was the rice gnocchi with homemade kimchi. Freaking unbelievable. The blend of textures, slightly chewy, crunchy, spicy. Mmm. Next was the scallop with a 60 minute yolk. The egg yolk was gently cooked for so long that it turned into a rich, creamy custardy, sauce. When broken and mixed with the white miso butter and the homemade sriacha (yes that’s right… so good), it was pretty outstanding.
The service was delightful, the menu is equal parts thoughtful and whimsical. This is a super exciting restaurant and we can’t wait to eat there again!

Great place, all smaller plates so you can try different things and absolutely everything on the menu was flavored and prepared to perfection. No overcooked fish here, just creative dishes executed pretty much flawlessly — the butterfish and striped marlin were favorites but everything was outstanding. It’s a small place so I’m pretty sure I will no longer be able to get a table once the word gets out but Fin absolutely continues the tradition of excellence in the old Sel Gris space, check it out.

It is patently unfair to review a restaurant prior to its «official» opening, or even before at least a month post opening has gone by. After all, soft openings and the first few weeks are about both the kitchen and the front of the house ironing out the kinks. Still, one can get a pretty good idea of whether a place is destined for a solid run or the trash heap. With that caveat (and with the context of a soft opening), I have to believe Fin will become a destination for PDX seafood lovers (and fans of Sel Gris).
Original PDX food blog postings suggested a Wednesday «opening,» which was later pushed back to allow the kitchen a couple of extra days to launch. It must not have helped that an electrician cut the telephone line the week before the opening (I can only imagine the panic THAT must have created!). When an initial VM request for a reservation went unanswered for a couple of days, I chalked it up to the typical frantic slip through the cracks associated with a new restaurant and thought no more of it… I was presently surprise when Ron (the co-​owner, along with his wife Joan) called back several days later extremely apologetic as the phone company had held ransom at least 15 voice mails when the line was cut. While no longer taking any reservations, he promptly offered me one last spot at the soft opening and I gladly accepted.
Sure, there were the typical first day/​week/​month issues: they ran out of bread; share plates and serving spoons, etc. required a gentle reminder. That said, the service was knowledgeable and gracious.
The menu is set out in three parts/​courses (if I remember correctly): entitled whet, wade and plunge, all in small plate fashion. Had a Peruvian style ceviche and some NW oysters for the first course course, both perfectly acceptable. The mid-​course plate was tagliatelle with squid and black squid ink. Beyond the nice plating, I particularly liked a tangy citrus element which gave the dish a nice acid balance to the richness of the squid ink pasta. Our main (third course) well balanced dish was a combination of a sable fish (with a perfectly crisp skin top) with a pork belly and an aged vinegar. For the first week, the chef seems to have a keen sense for balance with nothing too jarring or out of whack. Dessert concluded with a milk chocolate mousse (no cream, no eggs, just chocolate beaten with ice cubes) with orange and hazelnut accents.
For those who remember Sel Gris, the intimate space has been lightened up and includes (to my eye) a Dwell influenced combination of eco-​sustainable materials (in line with the seafood procurement practices) and mid-​century modern elements.
I look forward to a revisit in a few weeks once Fin hits their stride.