CHEFS AND RESTAURANTS

Chefs and Restaurants | Cooking Class | Grand Truffle Dinner | MarketPlace
Truffle Growers' Forum | Truffle Cultivation Seminar

Some of the best restaurants in Eugene and around the state feature Oregon truffles during the festival. Look for prix-fixe dinners and special menu items showcasing this wonderful native Oregon treasure. Festival participants have a special opportunity to enjoy these feasts as part of various festival packages.

2009 Package Three Guest Chef

Vitaly Paley, Chef and Owner
Paley's Place, Portland, OR

Paley's Place offers Pacific Northwest regional cuisine, served in the warm and inviting setting of a Victorian home. Chef and owner, Vitaly Paley, creates seasonal menus from the bounty of the Northwest - fresh organic ingredients supplied by local farmers, growers and purveyors - with Southern French and Northern Italian influences.

While the wine list offers an extensive selection exclusively from the wine regions of Oregon, Washington and France, "Wine Wednesday" takes a more global approach to wine tasting with wine flights available from around the world.

Seating is intimate, yet casual - both in the dining room and bar or outside on the porch. Since the restaurant opened in February, 1995, enthusiastic critics from the New York Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Orange County Register, and Portland Oregonian, among other publications, have endorsed the Paley's success. Check out the recent article in the New York Times by Eric Asimov "In Portland, a Golden Age of Dining and Drinking."

To be released in October 2008: The Paley's Place Cookbook Recipes And Stories From The Pacific Northwest by Vitaly Paley and Kimberly Paley With Robert Reynolds Photography by John Valls Published by Ten Speed Press.

Chef Paley was featured on the Martha Stewart Living Show December 4th, where they spoke about their appreciation for Oregon truffles.

Purchase Package Three Tickets -->>

2009 A Villa Evening

Hosts Danuta and Robin Pfeiffer welcome you to a truly unique evening, featuring an elegant, sensuous dining experience in the stunning Tuscan Villa at Pfeiffer Vineyards. We are delighted to announce our guest chef for Villa Evening 2009 will be Philippe Boulot, James Beard award winning chef from the Heathman Restaurant and Bar in Portland. Participants will enjoy a 4 course meal featuring Oregon truffles paired with gorgeous Pfeiffer wines, and with Chef Boulot present throughout the evening.

This limited attendance event is only available to specific festival package purchasers on a first-come, first-served basis, and sells out quickly every year.

Villa Evening Guest Chef

Philippe Boulot, Executive Chef
Heathman Restaurant and Bar, Portland, OR

French Master Chef Philippe Boulot begins the new year in a new role as Executive Chef of the Portland-based Multnomah Athletic Club (MAC).

Philippe’s reputation as a James Beard Award recipient has given him well-deserved status for culinary preparation and presentation.

As Executive Chef of the Heathman Restaurant and Bar, Boulot is renowned for marrying traditional French rustic-style cooking with local seasonal ingredients to create a sophisticated yet unpretentious French Northwest cuisine. Culinary recognition has followed him at each step in his professional journey, from Paris to Portland via London, San Francisco and New York City.

Born and reared in Caen in the Normandy region of France, Boulot began his training in multiple restaurant disciplines at the Jean Drouant Hotel School in Paris as a teenager. During his early years in the city he worked under several esteemed chefs including Restaurant l’Archestrate where he met his wife Susan, a native of Portland and until the past few years a renowned pastry chef in her own right. Other highlights of his Parisian career included the opening of Chez Jamin in 1982, and service with the Hotel Nikko, Hilton Hotel and Nova Park Elysees.

He assumed his first executive chef’s position at The Mark Hotel in New York City. At the age of 30, under his direction the Mark kitchens earned critical acclaim, including being named “Best Restaurant of the Year” by Esquire Magazine and a gold medal, “Best of the Best,” in the Five-Star Diamond Awards. In the intervening years he was at the Four Seasons Inn on the Park in London for three years and worked as the sous chef at the famed Four Seasons Clift Hotel in San Francisco.

Boulot’s desire to celebrate regional foods with a French twist helped inspire a restaurant revolution in Portland in the mid-1990s and the city’s residents and visitors have never looked back. Having adopted Oregon (and vice versa), Boulot is among an elite group of chefs who continue to elevate Northwest cuisine, making Portland a true culinary destination. He will continue to participate in signature charitable events featuring the foods and wines of the region.

“I found Oregon by meeting and marrying Susan,” says Philippe Boulot. “The great quality of life for my family, new challenging work in a world-class setting, wonderful seasonal foods– these are the ingredients for a productive, satisfying career and life here in Oregon.”

Villa Evenings from years' past

photos courtesy of: Georgia Freedman

Marketplace Cooking Demonstration

Caprial and John Pence, Founding Chefs & Owners
Caprial's Bistro, Portland, OR

For the past fifteen years Caprial and John Pence have owned and operated Caprial’s Bistro, a restaurant located in a small quaint neighborhood just southeast of downtown Portland. The Pences’ expanded the restaurant in 1999 to include a private space where one can take weekly cooking classes or hold private parties.

The paths that they have traveled to reach the present have, however been quite different. John and Caprial grew up on opposite coasts - Caprial on the west coast and John on the east coast. Caprial’s passion for cooking was sparked at an early age, while John’s was fueled by a postgraduate cooking job. Their paths crossed at the Culinary Institute of America where they attended school.

In the mid-eighties, following graduation from the CIA, the Pences’ moved to Seattle, a city they credit for launching their culinary careers. Experiences combined, they have worked in every size and style of restaurant imaginable.

It was during this period, while Caprial was Chef de Cuisine at Fullers in Seattle and only six short years from her graduation at the CIA, that Time magazine heralded Caprial as "the latest star in town, she turns out dishes that are as delicious as they are pretty." She was next honored by earning the James Beard Award for Best Chef, Pacific Northwest 1990, the first year this distinguished award was given.

Ten years ago, Caprial teamed up with the Learning Channel to do a cooking show, Caprial’s Café. Several years later the popular series moved to Public Television. In 2000, Caprial and John began to do the series together, Caprial and John’s Kitchen: Cooking for Family and Friends.

Since September 2003, the Pence’s have co-produced the series with Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB), Caprial and John’s Kitchen: Cooking for Family and Friends. This series, in its’ third session, airs nationally on public television stations. Caprial alone has authored eight cookbooks, including one co-authored with John that is the companion book to the current television series entitled Caprial and John’s Kitchen; Recipes for Cooking Together. They say, “We wrote this book to share our philosophy of celebrating the table and spending time together creating in the kitchen”.

Certainly, Caprial and John Pence are the Northwest’s best-known and admired “cooking together” couple. Together they have inspired one another in achieving culinary excellence and have a gift for sharing this extraordinary genius with others.

Caprial and John have two children and live in Portland.

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