Old Salt Market Place

Great place with a very helpful, down-​to-​Earth staff. Casual environment with delicious cuisine. It’s that weird thing Portland does where you can have gourmet eats in your flannel shirt.
Beef Tartare for appetizer was smooth and savory. This is the way is should be done!
Brisket was lush with just enough chew. Be prepared to trim your own fat.

brunch review:
came in a few weeks ago and had one of the best brunch experiences of 2016.
I had seen online that they had offered Chilaquiles so I had to go as I am currently looking for the best chillaquiles/​breakfast tacos/​huevos rancheros in PDX and was sad to see they were not offering it that day (clever pawn to have me come back).
things we ordered:]
my husband an i decided to order the apple cider doughnuts because I am a doughnut fan and it was by far the best doughnut I have had in portland and that is saying a lot for me. a dense apple spice cake rolled in a cinnamon and sugar and served fresh! we couldn’t believe how well it tasted. we also ordered foods to eat; white cheddar frittata with apples, potatoes and toast as well as their eggs benedict. everything ordered was really good and cooked to perfection.
the service was on the spot, as was our food and the price. I can’t wait to go back and order their chillaquiles as i will be back very soon!

Tried this place after reading about it in a magazine. We came in around noon on a Saturday. The wait was long. I ordered a Mexico breakfast nacho thing. It was good except the slaw was too sour and the tortilla chips were soggy by the time I got to them. My friend had pumpkin corn meal pancakes. Said they were awesome. Over all ⁸⁄₁₀. Waited long for food. Bakery next door for yummy cakes cookies. They are connected

I freakin’ love Old Salt! We come here at least once a week and food is always fresh delicious and beautifully presented We dine at the bar most often and enjoy amazing conversation with Julia and Jesse, who provide impeccable service as well!
AND just discovered that they have a truly happy hour from 5 – 6. Fantastic deal on their farm fresh fare!

Old Salt is a regular weekend brunch spot for me and it’s always delicious. I usually brunch alone (don’t judge me) so I take a seat at the bar to avoid waiting for a table. They brew Extracto coffee, so…
This morning I got their special, chicken fried steak. Let me tell you something, folks. I’m a slow eater. I’m not afraid to admit that. I take my time. I like to savor my food. I’m not in a rush! Stop rushing me. Well, that chicken fried steak was smothered in tasty, tasty gravy but it stayed crispy and crunchy right up until the very end. Bless that steak.
Their Bloody Mary is also delicious, the Eggs Benedict is some of the best in town, and it looks like the other reviewers have already gushed about the potatoes so I won’t. Good shit here, people. You won’t be disappointed.

This was my second trip here, and the food was just as wonderful as last time. The first trip I had the daily special Chicken Fried Steak with salt potatoes. This time I had the Eggs Benedict with salt potatoes. Both were excellent, well prepared and flavorsome.
But let’s talk about those potatoes — hands down the best breakfast potatoes anywhere. I’m guessing here, but I think they are twice cooked, so they come to the table golden and crispy and perfectly seasoned. I can’t figure out how they break them into the irregular shapes, but that just adds to their appeal, by giving them all those little nooks and crannies for those little crispy bits.
My only disappointment, was that the butcher’s counter wasn’t open this time so I could pick up some of their amazing sausages.

Old Salt Market Place does it again. We have been so impressed by the place that we decided to have our company party there. They were wonderful to work with through email and we got the whole thing set up effortlessly. They accommodated the one food allergy that we had without missing a beat.
They do family style when you have this many people (13). We called around to other restaurants and we were told on average $ 40 and that would be 4 courses. Old Salt does it different. You pick any price point, they assured us $ 30 a person was plenty and the courses kept coming and coming and coming. I think we had nearly 12 courses total with 5 of those being main courses. It was crazy! The best food, the best service and the best value for a company party we have ever had. We even got a space all to ourselves which gave us the ability to move around, do gift exchanges and just enjoy each other. It will be hard to not want to come here again in the future even though we typically choose a different location each year.
My advice is if you have a big group go here!

Beef Tartare: Excellent appetizer. Very simple, but it was fresh and perfect. The crusty sourdough bread was an excellent vehicle for the beef. Savory, creamy, everything you’d need in a good beef tartare.
Hearth Roasted Beef: It was only like 19 $, but it still wasn’t good. The beef looked nice; it was red and looked juicy, but it was bland and chewy. The onions needed more char. And the sweet potatoes were ok. For a place that has an excellent selection of meats and butcher chop in house, this was very disappointing.
Burger: I don’t mind paying 13 $ for a good burger that doesn’t come with fries. I pay 14 for le pigeon’s burger and 15 for trifecta’s, but those are good burgers that have something special in them. The burger at Old Salt is the most basic burger you can imagine. The patty isn’t big; it’s not juicy. It’s just a typical bacon burger with cheese and pickles that doesn’t come with fries. At 13 $, common now, chef, go try the burgers at Le Pigeon, Trifecta, Tasty n Sons/​alder. Create something at least semi unique, then charge 13 $ for it… or at least add fries.
I wanted to like this place, but it was disappointing.
Old fashioned cocktail was very good BTW.
I have zero reason to come back to this place.

I’m torn because my boyfriend vows that thus far, Old Salt makes his favorite steak tartare in life (the one time we’ve had it), but my brunch today just isn’t sitting with me well. If you go to brunch, opt for the biscuits n’ gravy.
I got ben’s biscuits with honey butter, braised beef hash and biscuits n’ gravy. The biscuits were pretty good smothered in butter and jam, but my friend reported hers was crusted with salt on the top? Then when our entrees came, my hash was just. So underwhelming. I’ve had some damn fine hash in Portland and I’m not sure why this had to be so bad?
The hash was merely mashed/​chunked up potatoes, shredded beef & onions. No bell peppers, no greens, no other speck of veg and I don’t think there were any herbs? It was so savory and SO SALTY. It really was pot roast for breakfast that got left on the cast iron too long on one side before they gave my dish a flip which also gave it a slight burnt flavor. I had to slather my dish in hot sauce just to give it a different flavor than just savory salt. SO. SALTY.
So maybe we’ll come back for HH. But I’ll just have my hash at Arleta or P&Q’s. I’m sad I’m so disappointed in my brunch at Old Salt today :(

Very happy for these guys, they run a first class operation and their meat counter is pretty impressive, you can tell place this is run by enthusiasts. I’ve had a few sit down meals here, but today came in for a sandwich to go around 1:00. Place wasn’t really busy but wasn’t empty. That said, I’m not expecting fast food but also didn’t think it would take 25 minutes to make. My advice is to hire some extra help for the lunch counter. No matter how good the food, no-​one likes waiting that long on a to-​go order.
I had the Grinder, it was great, but don’t try to pick this sandwich up to eat. I was going to take a pic but my hands were literally dripping with oil and grease. Best for sitting down with a knife and fork.
So keep up the good work but consider adding some staff.

Fantastic sandwiches. The Italian Grinder is so good. At first it seemed like there was an unmanageable amount of radicchio and peppers on top, but it condenses very well. Lots of meat and cheese underneath. Bun was perfectly griddled.

This place used to be awesome. I’ve gone there a few times and also to Grain and Gristle a few times. I think they’ve really dropped the ball though.
I went here and got the ‘let us cook for you’. They brought out some apps which were basically the same ones we usually get (I don’t think the ‘let us cook for you’ really means anything. I’d just pick shit off the menu in the future.)
Their pork rinds were fuckin gross. They didn’t season them at all and they were monster chunks. In the past I’ve had the biscuits as the first dish which were really good. The slim jim is also pretty gross. Who the fuck wants a slim jim before a meal? That’s gross, folks. It’s like going to a fancy restaurant and getting a rolo for dessert.
Also had the fritters this time, which were pretty much flavorless. It was weird, I couldn’t tell what they were made with. Somthing orange — squash, sweet potato, carrot? Didn’t matter because I couldn’t taste anything.
Then they brought out the beef tartare which is really good. It’s fuckin delicious.
Then they brought out some pickles which are pickles. Pickled fennel was the best.
Then for the entrée??? they brought out a riddichio salad which had a nice balance of a vinagrette and bacon flavors.
Then we sat and talked. For about a half an hour while the folks next to us who got here after us got their entrees. I kept seeing entrees go out to tables. It wasn’t a super busy night, but it was still disconcerting to see the waitstaff behind the bar texting on their phones and bullshitting. That’s some frogurt level restaurant shit. This ain’t Ihop, motherfuckers.
So we waited and eventually just asked for the check and left. For the appetizers we paid $ 30 and left hungry. The waiter said that chef didn’t think we were waiting that long and that there was no problem. First of all… motherfucker… If the chef wants to pull a gordon ramsay he can just come and tell us so I can tell him I wouldn’t feed those pork rinds to my dog. If he’s got down’s or something and fails to see that every table around us has food on it and tickets that were put in after ours have finished their entrée then good luck old salt. You guys are fucked. Your chef is a burger flipper level cook. I don’t need to hear from the waiter what the chef thinks. That was rude and uncalled for.
I think the thing is that likely Old Salt has the capability to be a great restaurant but that’s not gonna pay the bills for them in the long run, or they are getting complacent so they’re cutting corners and hiring shitty staff. I’ve seen it happen at restaurants before. Good food gets them a good reputation and then they just wane from there. Same menu year in year out. Ingredients get poorer quality as margins increase. Then nobody goes anymore.
Too many good restaurants in Portland to go here anymore. A year ago I would’ve recommended it. Pass.

My boyfriend and I were really hungry after our hike along the river. We decided to have sandwiches at Old Salt. The place was nearly empty, the staff seemed disinterested.
I ordered the French dip. The meat was luke warm and the bun was cold as was the aujus.
My bf’s Reuben was laden with sloppy, jelatenous fat with a sliver of meat, the bread was ridiculously thick, and the cheese wasn’t fully melted. His cup of chili was chilly.
We should have sent it back but like I said, we were hungry. Now we’re sorry we ate it.
After the fact I called the manager to let them know what’s happening in his restaurant. His interest matched our dining experience. Nuff said, wee-​e will never ever ever go back together.

I am constantly on Unilocal,but being the Unilocal Troll that I am, this is the first review since I moved to Portland 9 months ago… guess I’m not on the list for Elite in ’16
So far my culinary experience up here in the great Northwest has been really good… although a little on the heavy side i.e. biscuits and gravy, mac and cheese, pot pies.
So after having some drinks and an appetizer here a month ago, I was excited to try this place out for dinner.
Some friends from SF came up here to visit and I thought hey this would be a good place after the airport pick-up…bummed I was wrong on that thought.
List of what we had — Pork Rillettes, Zucchini Fritters, Toast with some Fennel stuff, Corn soup, Shrimp and tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, chicken and noodles.
The good — Shrimp, Corn Soup
The bad — Rillettes — toast was burned, chicken– way too salty liked they brined it too long, broccoli– burned.
The ugly — Fritters — burned until they looked like little charcoal balls and to top it off really salty, Cauliflower — burned, they looked like little black spriral florets in a sea of bauna cauda sauce.
So it looks like they cooked most of their stuff in a wood burning oven… apparently the chef must really want us to taste that wood burning flavor in his bread and vegetables! Not sure why the burned theme transferred over to the deep fried fritters though… wood burning deep fryer???
Yeah what were we thinking… ordering mainly vegetables in a meat market???

I have been wanting to get in and try the Deli sandwiches for a while. I’ve tried three separate times, apparently always on weekends or after hours, and never hit the hours right. Finally, yesterday, I was happening by at lunchtime on a weekday. The guy behind the counter was really attentive, and gave great service. I ordered the Dipper, since I’m a sucker for a great french dip. Unfortunately, this one left much to be desired. The bread was slathered in a weird congealing glop of cheese/​mayo spread. The Au Jus was horrible. It was a sticky gravy consistency, as if they added a bunch of corn starch to thicken it. Not a good flavor either. Weird. The meat was plentiful, the bread itself was fine, but man, the sauces. Not good.

I’m about 90% vegetarian and I still love coming here. I’ve been twice for dinner, haven’t tried lunch yet. The last time I went we shared the only veg entrée (grilled squash and frikeh with an eggplant, chanterelle sauce and a poached egg) and it was fantastic. My meat-​eating friends said it was even better than their roast beef and romesco. I can also wax poetic about the grilled cauliflower with bagna cauda (not veg) and heirloom tomato salad (veg). Some of the sides (artichoke, padron peppers) are pretty basic and the servings aren’t huge, but the prep is still solid.
Anyway, it’s a nice place to take someone you want to impress, but impress in a relaxed, comfy kind of way. The cocktails are phenomenal, the service is great, the atmosphere is friendly. In all, a decent price for a higher end dining experience.

We drove up from Medford, with empty stomachs researching places to eat. With the help of Unilocal,Jen Stevenson’s beloved second edition of Portland’s 100 Best Places to Stuff Your Faces and countless google searches we decided on The Old Salt Café.
I have connected my story from snapchat of the $ 40 «Let us cook for you,» my girlfriend and I decided on. Some words may have been spelled wrong like beet because I may have had a couple beers with my meal but also because it was hard to care about spelling. They where putting the most amazing assortments of edible artwork in front of us with the kind of integrity that would make Andrew Bourdain jealous. Please watch and see for yourself and then get your ass down here to try it!

We have been here twice and I have a hard time with the «stars». For some things it’s a three. For others a five. So four it is…
Let’s start with the five: They source an animal and use the whole thing. That’s wonderful. They have a butcher case that will make you drool and want to spend your weekly food budget right then and there. They have a non pretentious space on NE 42^nd. They are friendly and welcoming when you walk in.
The three: chairs and benched are kind of uncomfortable to sit in for an hour (or more). Dinner menu is not as exciting as lunch menu. The more I think about what to put in the three I think I don’t have much so I’m glad I picked four stars… we had a really nice dinner.
Started off with a kale salad that had candied bacon in it. Yum. My husband even remarked «hey look at me eating kale». It was big and a delicious start that went well with out manhattan drinks.
Also shared the pork roulette which came with pickled veggies, mustard and bread. The first few bites were ok but it really grew on me when I paired the flavor a together. Wish the bread was not cinnamon raisin flavored though. (I think it was…)
I had lamb meatballs, cavatelli and peas with chèvre. Was a delicious sauce once everything melded.
Husband had the pork chops polenta and greens. They were smoky and tasty.
We skipped desert /​but it all sounded good. I want to try them for lunch and will be back to get stuff from the butcher case for sure.

Oh hell yes. Old Salt, you stole my heart and I only had a sandwich.
I won’t wax lyrical about the inherent charm to the old-​timey, rustic, barn-​chic atmosphere because it’s been well documented. Despite that logic, it doesn’t matter how many other folks have mentioned it, the quality of meat they sell is out of this world. I overheard the butcher explaining that they receive a weekly delivery of Oregon-​ranched cows and pigs and do all of the butchery — head to toe — in house. He then, without blinking, assured the customer that the steak she was considering is undoubtedly the best steak in the entire state. And from what I saw and sampled, he’s right.
I know I need to come back for dinner. And for brunch. And for the bar. (Mostly for the bar.) But in the meantime, I’ll be dreaming about the most delicious ham, swiss, fennel, and apple butter sandwich I’ve ever had the pleasure of indulging in.

If I lived in the neighborhood, I might well be a repeat visitor, walking over in the evening to sip a martini (noting that OId Salt Market Place has a full bar and also noting that it’s open late). But I came here in an entirely different context, to grab a sandwich for lunch.
The atmosphere is casual, and the counter help friendly. You place your request at the cash register and they will call your name when your order is ready.
I went with Mama’s Meatloaf sandwich, accompanied by the acorn squash & grains salad. While I respect the creativity expressed in the menu and its dishes, I was disappointed in the seasonings of my sandwich and salad. The menu describes Mama’s Meatloaf as grilled meatloaf served on house-​baked wheat, topped with ketchup aioli, bread & butter pickles and lettuce. Sounds really good, doesn’t it? But if the meatloaf wasn’t seasoned with Five Spice, it was seasoned with something very similar.
Pausing for a moment, what generally are considered the spices that constitute Five Spice? Well, that would be fennel, star anise, cloves, cinnamon and Szechuan pepper. This seasoning mix is common to Asian and Arabic cooking, but not to American cuisine, certainly not to meat loaf. Yes, I was less than pleased with the seasoning of the meatloaf, finding it unpleasant, and I did not finish it. But to be fair, those of you with more adventurous taste buds might find this sandwich delicious.
I loved the hearty texture of the acorn squash & grains salad. But again, the seasonings of the salad were exotic and not to my liking. Like the sandwich, I couldn’t finish the salad.
Oh, if you are sitting at one of the tables inside the bar area and next to the inside wall, watch your head! Old Salt has these lamps hanging between tables, and when you pass between the tables, and are of a certain height, you might conk your head against one of the lamps (I did twice).