Quick Take:
Eugene bistro Bar Purlieu combines French technique with Willamette Valley bounty, creating a seasonally driven menu that changes weekly.
At Bar Purlieu, the menu changes weekly, but the philosophy remains constant: exceptional ingredients, prepared with French technique, served without pretense.
The word “purlieu” (pronounced pearl-yoo if you’re French, but pearl-loo works, too) once described the areas around medieval forests where people gathered freely on land that feudal landowners weren’t allowed to own. Fittingly, this small Eugene bistro has become a modern-day hangout where neighbors congregate. It’s an approach that has turned the restaurant into something special, equally comfortable serving escargot to adventurous diners and welcoming regulars who just want great food in their neighborhood.
Credit: Vanessa Salvia / Lookout Eugene-Springfield
Credit: Vanessa Salvia / Lookout Eugene-Springfield
Credit: Vanessa Salvia / Lookout Eugene-Springfield
From Olive Garden to ownership
The story of Bar Purlieu begins not in France, but in an Olive Garden, although there is a European connection. Joe Kiefer-Lucas and Laura Hines first met as coworkers in an Olive Garden in 2010, when both had graduated from college and both were contemplating graduate school — Hines for nutrition after studying economics and psychology and Kiefer-Lucas for literature. But the economy and the restaurant industry had other plans.
“We were both victims of graduating in inopportune times economically,” Hines said. “In that process, we kept working in restaurants and then found ourselves committed to making it a career.”
Hines worked her way up from bartender to wine buyer and general manager at Membrillo, which formerly occupied the space where Bar Purlieu found its home. She also worked at Oregon Electric Station as assistant restaurant manager, bar manager, and wine buyer. Kiefer-Lucas went to work at Izakaya Meiji and quickly became bar manager.
The experiences gave them “really good business minds,” Hines said, along with an understanding of quality products. Hines’s childhood in Germany and frequent visits to Yorkshire with her English mother shaped her palate and her vision for what she wanted her own restaurant to be.
“I grew up in Europe for eight years and food systems there are just so different than they are here,” she said. “And the food that I grew up on, I missed.”
The couple found inspiration in Eugene’s boutique restaurants. The European influence and farm-to-table ideals of Marché, along with Hines’s favorites Belly and Black Rabbit Bistro, both now closed, influenced what she and Kiefer-Lucas wanted to do with their own restaurant — except their original idea was more bar-focused with a small-plate menu of well-sourced and well-made food.
In fact, the reason Bar Purlieu has escargot on the menu is because Black Rabbit Bistro used to have it on their happy hour menu.
“That was when I first discovered how much I actually love it,” Hines said about the dish of snails sauteed with garlic and parsley butter. “I always describe it as if an animal was like a beet, the vegetable, it would be a snail. There’s that earthiness that’s in a beet, and it tastes a lot like garlic.”
Hines said the escargot dish is a popular one at Bar Purlieu with customers who try it and realize how good it is. Other menu items that are for adventurous Eugene diners are sweetbreads (glands of cows or sheep) and bone marrow, which chef Trevor Rivera serves in early summer with pickled fennel, a light parsley shallot salad, and grilled bread. Bar Purlieu doesn’t have sweetbreads on the menu very often, but when it does, customers return each week to get them.
The chef’s journey
Executive chef Rivera, who joined the restaurant last October, has his own story of culinary evolution. Starting as a dishwasher at Marché 14 years ago, Rivera worked his way up to executive chef under Rocky Maselli, now chef owner of Osteria DOP. Rivera later honed his skills at Lion & Owl as sous chef for three years. Chef Crystal Platt of Lion & Owl was also chefing at Marché when Rivera was working there.
Rivera said his experience working at these well-established and respected restaurants was extremely valuable, but eventually he felt like his workdays were too similar.
“I needed a change and Bar Purlieu had availability so I jumped on,” he said.
Rivera said he got his culinary passion from his great-grandmother, Everly Murrah. As a child he spent summers with her in Belzoni, Mississippi.
“She was a retired Army wife,” Rivera said. “Her husband had died before I was in the picture, and she spent pretty much every day making food for everyone in the community. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, she always had a meal for people at her house for anyone who wanted to come through.”
Rivera began to appreciate the joys of cooking and giving back to the community. As a resident of the Willamette Valley for the past 20 years, he’s also come to appreciate the quality of the local produce, and meat and seafood ingredients. Rivera’s menus highlight the farms where ingredients come from, to share that local provenance with customers.
“The thing that I love the most about this area is there’s so much local produce,” he said. “Being an hour away from the ocean, we get fresh seafood. All of the produce that is grown in this valley is just miraculous. And also very similar to France, where people shop as local as possible.”
Rivera says the “farm to table” label is a bit misleading because all vegetables come from a farm in some way.
“So, really being local and sustainable, I think, is the new progression of that,” he said. “You’re not buying vegetables from, you know, Peru. You’re keeping it local and supporting local commerce and local agriculture.”
Rivera’s menu is a combination of small and sharable plates along with salads and entrees that can be a full meal for one. The menu changes weekly. He uses what’s fresh, abundant, and seasonal from many farms rather than deciding he wants to make a particular dish.
“It’s looking at, what can I do with this ingredient, and finding a fun way to portray that,” he said. “If you have snap peas, then it’s about highlighting that rather than it just being a component in something. That’s what I strive to do with pretty much anything.”
The mushroom tart is a favorite, and one that will always be on the menu. Brussels sprouts dishes are very popular, but those move off the menu by summertime.
“The shellfish Catalan is an interesting dish because that’s Catalonian in style, but instead of a Spanish-style chorizo, we’re using a Mexican recipe,” Hines said. “So there’s a lot of fusion in that dish, but the technique of it is fully French. That’s a good example of what we do.”
Credit: Vanessa Salvia / Lookout Eugene-Springfield
Credit: Vanessa Salvia / Lookout Eugene-Springfield
Credit: Vanessa Salvia / Lookout Eugene-Springfield
Some dishes regularly appear, but with seasonal accompaniments for a fresh take. In mid-June, the menu is highlighting a foie gras torchon (rolled preparation) with rhubarb. Grilled asparagus is tossed with Oregon bay shrimp and a green goddess dressing. A salad unites radishes, beets, cherries, strawberries, rhubarb, and dill. Seared sea scallops are served alongside a spring pea risotto, while the beef tenderloin is accompanied by charred spring onions and new potatoes enriched with Oregon black truffle butter.
Bar Purlieu is the only restaurant that has access to 100% grass-fed beef tenderloin from Knee Deep Cattle Co.’s Lorane Highway pastures. Chicken comes from PK Pastures in Sweet Home. Oysters are shipped directly from Hama Hama Oyster Co. in Washington. Most fish comes from Newman’s Fish Co., across the street from Bar Purlieu.
Even cocktails reflect this seasonal and local philosophy. Bar manager Kiefer-Lucas creates drinks that showcase local produce, like the Green Thumb featuring snap peas from Groundworks Organics, and he grows lovage, which tastes like a citrusy celery, specifically for cocktails in the restaurant’s garden beds. Plus, in keeping with a French-inspired menu, Bar Purlieu has eight different absinthes and pastis (also anise-flavored but sweeter and milder than absinthe).
The Smokin’ Mirrors (left) and Bird of Prey cocktails from Bar Purlieu. Smokin’ Mirrors combines Famous Grouse whisky, 10-year Laphroaig scotch, lime, orgeat, pastis, and mint. Bird of Prey features rum, Campari, lime, pineapple shrub, cacao nibs, tonka bean, and soda. Credit: Vanessa Salvia / Lookout Eugene-Springfield
Neighborhood bistro with fine-dining chops
Despite offering a chef’s tasting menu (ranging from $75 per person for four courses to $95 per person for six courses) and high-end wines, Bar Purlieu deliberately maintains a welcome and casual-but-nice neighborhood feel, with the music a little louder and the lights a little lower than a traditional fine-dining restaurant.
“We don’t have uniforms or tablecloths, it’s not stuffy,” said Kiefer-Lucas. “We have the quality of the product and the knowledge of our staff to be a great special occasion place, but we also have the atmosphere for people to just come in and hang out. We never wanted to be the place where people say, ‘It’s my favorite place to go once a year for my birthday.’ We want people in the neighborhood to just go ‘oh you want to go get dinner?’”
The restaurant recently added Saturday brunch from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., serving a similar menu to its dinner menu, including mimosas, salads, omelets, breakfast sandwiches, and brisket hash featuring that grass-fed beef from Knee Deep.
While Bar Purlieu continues to evolve, the team remains committed to the original vision of exceptional food and drinks rooted in local ingredients, served in an atmosphere that welcomes everyone, from punk-rock friends grabbing beers on the patio to couples celebrating anniversaries.
“Feel comfortable being you and in your moment and in your time,” Hines said, “celebrating or just walking down the street.”
Truffle Shuffle
Recipe courtesy of Bar Purlieu
1 ounce of black truffles per liter of brandy or cognac (Bar Purlieu uses Maison Rouge VSOP)
1/2 ounce orgeat aromatic bitters, such as Angostura
Rough chop the truffles and add them to the brandy and infuse for about three weeks, agitating them occasionally. When the infusion is ready, strain off the truffles and discard. 1 liter of cognac will make 16 drinks.
To make the drink, combine 2 ounces truffle-infused cognac with the orgeat. Stir and strain into a coupe glass. Add 2 dashes bitters and garnish with orange zest.
Dining and Cooking