Nostrana Nostrana’s dining room and host stand in 2014. The restaurant, which turns 20 years old this month, remains one of Portland’s busiest. (The Oregonian /OregonLive.com/The Oregonian/file)
When Cathy Whims opened the Italian restaurant Nostrana in a former Southeast Portland market in 2005, she figured she only had a decade left in the restaurant business.
She wasn’t burned out. Quite the opposite. Yes, Whims had already spent 18 years climbing the ranks from line cook to co-owner at longtime special-occasion restaurant Genoa. But wine-buying trips to Italy had lit a fire under the chef, inspiring her to consider a simpler, more ingredient-driven approach to Italian cuisine.
“At Genoa, there was this long tradition of being the special occasion restaurant in Portland, and there were a lot of European continental recipes that came into our menus,” Whims said. “It’s funny to me now, but for a restaurant that called itself Italian, we would have rack of lamb with Béarnaise sauce. Now, I don’t think a lamb stew with black olives and rosemary is any less of a dish. But it somehow didn’t fit in that setting.”
Still, cooking is a young person’s game, and when Nostrana first opened its doors at 1401 S.E. Morrison St., Whims was already 48. (Contrast that with Gabriel Rucker, who worked at Nostrana briefly before opening his own restaurant, Le Pigeon, in 2006 at the ripe old age of 25.)
Cathy Whims Cathy Whims at her beloved Southeast Portland restaurant, Nostrana, which marks its 20th anniversary this month. (Courtesy of Nostrana/R.Ariel)
Yet as Nostrana approaches its 20th anniversary on Oct. 17, Whims and her team at Nostrana are busier than ever. In April, Whims published her first cookbook, a lovely ode to la dolce vita — the good life — dubbed “The Italian Summer Kitchen,” complete with mood-setting watercolor illustrations and plentiful recipes designed for home cooks. This year, l’Orto Nostrano, the idyllic kitchen garden just across Southeast 14th Avenue, returned with happy hour spritzes, porchetta feasts and other festive events. And the restaurant, and its adjacent wine bar, Enoteca Nostrana, will continue to celebrate with parties, collaborative dinners and more.
The Oregonian/OregonLive spoke with Cathy Whims by phone Thursday about her first night at Genoa, her new cookbook and the best Portland meal she ate this year. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity:
Q: Did you think Nostrana would last for 20 years?
A: I was thinking I had maybe 10 years left in me in the restaurant business, but that’s a lot of time when you’re just starting out. When we opened I was just so excited about what we were doing and what kind of food that I wanted to make. In fact, I was too excited, because I just kept doing this thing where, wait, what’s the name of the chef from “The Bear” show?
Q: Carmy?
A: That’s right. He keeps changing the menu, and his sous chef says, “Carmy, you can’t keep doing this.” I was just doing that all the time. And finally, I had two opening chefs, they were both women, and one I had for a long time, Kelly Myers, who went on to open Xico, sort of sat me down and said, “We can’t keep changing the menu all the time.” But we’ve always had things that never change because they were successful: the (radicchio) salad, the tuna-bean salad, the tagliata steak, the chocolate budino and the fruit crisp. They’ve been on the menu since the very first day.
Q: Can you remind me what was in the Nostrana space before it opened?
A: Originally it was an Oregon chain of grocery stores called Kienow’s. That closed around 1995. And then it was Sue Bee’s discount market, which was like shopping in Moscow: One tube of toothpaste on the shelf. I lived a block or two away (from Kienow’s) when I got my job at Genoa in 1984. I remember they got the monthly issue of Vogue before the Fred Meyer on Hawthorne. That was their claim to fame in my book.
Q: The restaurant industry has never been easy. What’s been the secret to your 20-year run?
A: Equal parts subbornness and love? (Nostrana events producer) Natalia Toral suggested tongue-in-cheek that it’s like sabrage (the ceremonial process of opening Champagne bottles with a saber). I think there’s truth to that. Longevity in restaurants takes the same mix of courage, precision and a little bit of showmanship. And sometimes the bottle explodes.
Nostrana Longtime Nostrana managers Austin Bridges and Nicholas Suher saber bottles of bubbles at Nostrana’s 20th anniversary party on Sunday, October 5. (Courtesy of Nostrana/Courtesy of Nostrana)
Q: Did you have thoughts of writing a cookbook before this year?
A: Well, yeah. I always thought it would be part of the process of aging in the restaurant business. An accomplishment that seems worthwhile and exciting and fun. But I was busy! I opened a huge restaurant, and I broke up with my business partners. I didn’t really have time to think about that, and then as Nostrana became more comfortable with itself, and we were able to hire talented managers and everything started to run more smoothly, I started writing the cookbook with Martha Holmberg six or seven years ago. Then COVID hit, and publishers didn’t seem very interested in our proposal, which was more of a restaurant book.
Q: Publishers seem to have moved away from restaurant books…
A: Yes, but I thought Nostrana deserved a book. And it does. At some point maybe. But then COVID made you look at things differently. The restaurant was shut down for several months, and I had told my husband that the way that I’m going to get through this COVID thing is we’re going to eat two nice meals a day, one lunch and one dinner, and we’re both going to cook, otherwise I’m going to go crazy if I don’t have nice food. And I realized there were lots of dishes that I kept returning to and returning to. And many of them were dishes that were often on the menu at Nostrana.
Q: It sounds like you were able to dial in some of these recipes for home cooks?
A: Yeah, and I had a lot of time to read, too, mostly cookbooks — though I’m reading a really good fiction book right now called “I Capture the Castle” by the writer of “101 Dalmations,” Dodie Smith — and I had lots of time for reflections. And also, beautiful restaurant books with beautiful photographs of the food can be kind of cold and intimidating. When I met the illustrator, Kate Lewis, I just loved her work. Her watercolors really take you somewhere. Some of my favorite cookbooks have illustrations. And so it evolved into this book.
Q: In the intro, you write that you started at Genoa as a line cook. I thought I read you started as a dishwasher?
A: Yes, that’s out there. I have been a dishwasher in my life. But at Genoa on my very first night I was the pasta cook, and I remember the very first pasta I made (see recipe below). It was September, really hot, and Genoa had no air conditioning in the kitchen, and the first thing they told me to do was cut up a bunch of ripe raw tomatoes, then I mixed them with a little bit of garlic and torn basil and a lot of olive oil. Then we cooked fettuccine and tossed it with this room temperature sauce that had been marinating for an hour in the garlic and the salt and the basil. Cold sauce meets hot pasta. It’s really refreshing, especially on a hot night.
Nostrana Cathy Whims at her just-opened Nostrana in 2005. (The Oregonian /OregonLive.com/The Oregonian/file)
Q: Is it true that you wanted to turn Genoa into something similar to what Nostrana became, but the other co-owners said no?
A: I would say that that summary is relatively accurate, but a little simple. Seven years after I started working there in 1984, I became the wine buyer, and I was meeting wine makers who would say, “Why don’t you visit the winery, we have an apartment you could stay in.” I was blown away at how fresh the food tasted and how bright the ingredients were compared to what we were cooking at Genoa. But my business partner and I bumped heads over it. People were coming for their birthday or their anniversary or every single Valentine’s Day or New Year’s Eve for decades. And it’s kind of hard to change a place like that.
Q: You were a James Beard Awards finalist six times, but never broke through. Do you have any lingering anger about that, or have you let it go?
A: My husband is still irate. It’s not so much that I didn’t win, it’s just so expensive to participate: to cook at the Beard house, which I’m sure I did three or four times, and then of course when you go to New York and sit in that auditorium you want to share your award with the people who helped you, and to take everybody across the country for that is a crazy expensive extravaganza. Not everyone can win. But to sit there six times in the audience, it was excruciating.
Thank God Naomi (Pomeroy) won. I was very thankful for that.
I’m competitive with myself, but when I was playing soccer, I played wing, and I was the person that made the perfect pass to the striker, and then no one would ever pass the ball back to me. I made that perfect pass, and then they got to score, so it’s kind of in my personality.
Nostrana Housemade fettucine with pork meatballs, and Marcella’s No. 3 tomato butter sauce at Nostrana. (The Oregonian /OregonLive.com/The Oregonian/file)
Q: Last question — what is the best meal you’ve had in the past year?
A: Well, I was really blown away by Kann. It took me two years to get in. And there was just so much press. All the time. It was other-worldly. And I think Gregory is just the nicest person on Earth, but I still didn’t want to be disappointed. And I was just so happy that I really loved my meal. My favorite dish was that espageti, this Hispanic term for spaghetti, and I was just so blown away by it, because it was so clear that it was part of his family history, and so different than anything I ever would have thought of.
And now, here’s the first pasta Cathy Whims ever made at the Southeast Portland institution Genoa (reprinted with permission from “The Italian Summer Kitchen”):
Pasta alla Checca
Serves 4 to 6
2 pounds very ripe and juicy tomatoes, chopped coarsely, or halved cherry tomatoes
Sea salt
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup torn fresh basil leaves
4 garlic cloves, sliced very thinly
¼ to ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes or Calabrian chiles in oil, or 1 fresh chile, such as jalapeño or serrano, seeded and chopped finely
⅓ cup pitted whole Taggiasca or Gaeta olives, quartered
1 pound uncooked spaghetti
Flaky sea salt for garnish
Toss the tomatoes with about ½ teaspoon of salt in a large serving bowl. If not obviously juicy, crush lightly with a potato masher. Add the olive oil and ¾ cup of the torn basil leaves, tossing well. Add the garlic, red pepper flakes, and olives and season to taste. Leave at room temperature for 1 to 2 hours. (Keep in mind, the chile will get hotter as it sits, so add with caution.)When ready to serve, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the spaghetti and cook until al dente according to the package instructions. Drain well and transfer to the bowl of the tomato mixture, tossing well to combine. Garnish with the remaining ¼ cup of torn basil and a sprinkle of flaky salt. Taste and add more red pepper flakes if desired and serve immediately.
Nostrana serves dinner from Monday through Saturday at 1401 S.E. Morrison St. #101, 503-234-2427, nostrana.com
Dining and Cooking