Tillamook County has never been fertile ground for apex restaurants, the kind sought after by food obsessives (like ourselves). Tradition, tastes, and wallets have deterred their presence. With few exceptions most local restaurants serve the familiar kind of chow found in countless small towns: burgers ten different ways (usually from frozen patties), fries (that almost always droop), onion rings (usually purchased frozen and plucked from a bag into hot oil), soups from purchased stock, nachos (usually with shiny orange liquid-cheese-product on top), pre-breaded fish-and-chips, a steak, a filet of fish, so on.
Though this is beloved food on which we ourselves have gorged, it is nothing like the ambitious food found in restaurants elsewhere – usually in or near large cities – that startle you with their artistry. It is not food that engages the chops of a true chef who is steeped in food culture. It is not food to make a foodie fibrillate.
Bacon, bratwurst, duck confit, poultry stock, beef stock, fish stock, pastas, smoked salmon, smoked cod, guanciale, pancetta, hot coppa, sauerkraut, kimchi, aioli, smoked fish, beer mustard, creme fraiche, pastries, grape jam (from Oregon Grape, the Oregon State Flower), are ALL housemade at Bay City Kitchen, barely six months old. Located in a modest town in a modest building with a modest but comfortable (and comforting) interior, Bay City Kitchen has one large table, the rest small, shared by multiple parties when crowded, which leads to a gratifying conviviality. It has two true chefs, co-owners Kathy High for pastries-desserts and Derek McCarthy for everything else.
Our first foray was to a New Year’s Eve Sunday Night Dinner. This is a prix fixe meal held every Sunday evening that costs around $30 (hardly more than a burger and fries in some places) which offers a salad, a main course, a side, and dessert. For a reasonable extra charge, you can order beer and wine including a half-bottle of Alsatian Trimbach Gewurztraminer, one of our beloved favorites, rarely found.
Most wines were available in half-bottles which we appreciate, sized perfectly for couples who don’t relish DUIs. It is perplexing that most restaurants don’t carry them. Could it be because the profit margin isn’t as high?
We started with a mixed curly kale salad with lemon anchovy dressing, pickled red onions, spiced hazelnuts, and garlic herb crumbs. This salad is to your standard restaurant salad with bottled dressing as PBS is to the Brady Bunch. Most restaurants shy away from anchovy and pickled onion believing that they’re too ‘strong’ for customers.Thank goodness Bay City Kitchen knows better. Their salad is crisp, crunchy, bright with an enticing tang of anchovy.
Next, pan seared, bone-in New York strip steak, with scalloped fingerling potatoes and Gruyere, herb roasted carrots, broccolini, and foie gras roasted shallot jus. Somewhat tougher than ideal, the steak was cooked a perfect medium rare which, given all the steaks Chef McCarthy made, is a virtuoso feat. The jus was in just the right key. It’s very easy to overcook carrots when cooking for a large group straggling in. Chef McCarthy hit the texture note perfectly – a small detail, but critical to a restaurant’s excellence – a technical coup. The gratin of fingerling potatoes was creamy within, oozy with Gruyere, and crisped on top. You could eat it from your hand like a highly advanced potato chip.
Dessert was a citrus and champagne compote which we felt didn't quite jell with the pitch perfect coconut financiers. The chef was aiming high which we admire. Fine chefs take risks.
We spent the meal chatting like old chums with folks at surrounding tables.
Other Sunday dinners have included everything from Osso Bucco, to duck, to Veal Parmigiana, to Stroganoff, to Cassoulet, to crab stuffed squid (which sounds amazing, so much more interesting than typical deep-fried calamari, hearkening to the far corners of Vietnamese, Thai, and Italian cuisine), to Cioppino, to Schnitzel.
On our next visits, we sampled the a la carte lunch-dinner menu, and, judged by foodie standards, every item surpassed almost any other food nearby. We had their homemade lasagna made with homemade pasta served in a puddle of deeply-flavored tomato sauce. We highly approved of the oyster mushrooms within.
We had mac and cheese topped with garlic bread crumbs. So often, the macaroni is overcooked but their Cavatappi was to the tooth. We had Roasted Purple Sprouting Broccoli - with garlic, spiced pepitas and lemon on smashed white beans with Calabrian chilis. The broccoli was cooked but not limp, seared ideally so it was crisp on the edges.
We had duck confit with coco coco white beans, house made bacon, and purple sprouting broccoli in braising jus. We love duck and this was just the kind of bait to make us snap at the hook though we wish the confit had been crisped.
The Hot Italian Beef Sandwich - braised beef with shredded mozzarella/provolone and giardiniera was thrilling, served with a housemade jus instead of the standard dipping juice made from some kind of food-laboratory mix. The sandwich had a ridgeline of housemade giardiniera, a crunchy relish of pickled bits of cauliflower, carrot, and fennel that exponentially jacked the flavor.
The dessert of vanilla panna cotta with sour cherries was gratifying. We love their hot cocoa so much we order it every time we visit. The quality of these dishes ranged from very good to remarkable.
Though Bay City Kitchen certainly can do inventive food (e.g.,the crab stuffed squid) it’s repertoire seems to be mainly the kind of recipes that A/ one chef can do in bulk that B/ you might find in magazines like Bon Appetit or Gourmet, dinner party fare. It’s high end comfort food – not to be confused with fussy or pretentious or trophy food – that only knowledgeable and technically strong chefs can produce.
Finally, here is a local restaurant that moves beyond standard stuff. Not only that but its sophisticated yet approachable food is sexy good. And not only that, it gives remarkable value for price. Bluntly speaking, it’s a steal. Many items are available for takeout. Sauces, stocks, and sundry items are available frozen. This is the paradigm-shift Tillamook County has so badly needed. May it beget imitators.
A Star is Born in Tillamook County and her name is Bay City Kitchen, (https://baycitykitchen.com/menu/)