Portland chef Patrick McKee has announced plans to open his Italian restaurant concept, Estes, to Northeast Killingsworth and 30th Avenue.
Estes will open at the former Nona Tavern space on Northeast 30th, according to the Portland Business Journal, which first reported on the development. No firm opening date was given, but the outlet said the new iteration of Estes could open as soon as next week.
McKee first opened Estes as a popup at the same intersection, inside Dame Collective announced its closure last week.
Estes continued to operate within Dame until January 2025, operating at first as Dame + Estes but later dropping the Estes branding.
After departing from the Dame space, McKee began to run Estes as an evening popup inside Broder Nord on North Mississippi.
He is partnering with Ben Preacher—owner of Wilder Bar and Café and The Garrison—who will handle the bar and beverage program and front of house at Estes.
In 2022, WW food critic Michael C. Zusman wrote that Dame “may be the most wonderful, underpublicized restaurant in Portland.”
“Typically, a half-dozen pastas are made fresh daily, and every dish is the product of painstaking flavor-building technique. Servings are generous, but order ravenously; these pastas are virtuoso performances,” Zusman wrote, adding that Dame also served “plenty of inspired dishes that aren’t pasta.”
McKee told PBJ he was ready to break away from the chef-in-residence model to a permanent space with a more personal feel.
“I want to be able to have our own decor, our own vibe. I want to put pictures up with my grandparents,” McKee, a Portland restaurant veteran whose resumé includes a decade at Paley’s Place, said
Following McKee’s departure, Dame Collective continued its chef-in-residence program inside Dame, which has operated as a wine bar since 2016.
In its final iteration, Dame hosted the Cajun/Creole restaurant Ma Cher, which closed its doors on New Year’s Eve, and the Mexican restaurant Chelo, which shuttered on Dec. 19, the same day chef Luna Contreras was arrested on charges of domestic violence.
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