About
Rustic Ladle is a farmhouse kitchen on Culinary Lane, cooking honest, seasonal food for people who like to linger. We stand for generous plates, local growers and a table where everyone is welcome.
The dining room, 124 Culinary Lane
Where We Began
Rustic Ladle opened in 2012 in a former feed store at 124 Culinary Lane. The first menu fit on a chalkboard: a soup, a roast, a pie, and bread baked that morning. Neighbours came for lunch and stayed for supper, and the long tables we built from the old floorboards have been full most nights since.
We have grown slowly. The kitchen is bigger, the cellar is deeper and the chalkboard has become a printed menu, but the idea has not changed. Cook what is good this week, cook it with care, and serve it as if the guest were family.
How We Cook
Most of what we cook comes from within a hundred miles of Portland. We buy whole animals from two farms in the Willamette Valley, vegetables from growers we visit every season, and flour milled a short drive away. The menu follows what arrives at the back door, so it changes a little every week.
Slow methods do much of the work: long braises, wood-fired roasts, stocks that simmer overnight, pickles put up at the end of summer. We would rather do fewer things properly than many things quickly.
What We Hold To
01
Seasons set the menu
We write the menu around what our growers harvest, not the other way round.
02
Nothing wasted
Bones become stock, bread becomes crumbs, and peelings feed the compost for next year's beds.
03
Generous by default
Plates are made to share, and a second basket of bread is always on the house.
04
Everyone at the table
Children, dogs on the terrace, big families and solo diners are all welcome here.
Our Team