Portland’s only restaurant serving Native American cuisine is making a foray into fine dining.
The move marks an exciting pivot for the fledging operation, which has been selling out most of its events to crowds eager to sample Native American cuisine.
On Jan. 21, Javelina served its first prix-fixe menu in the Han Oak restaurant space in Northeast Portland. The restaurant hosts around 20 seats, and Javelina hosted two seatings of guests for its five-course menu.
As always, the Javelina dinner was a family affair. Alexa Numkena-Anderson, the chef and owner of Javelina, and her husband, Nicholas Numkena-Anderson, front-of-house manager, both have experience working in fine dining environments and shared their excitement for returning to the format. A caretaker kept baby Numkena-Anderson happy as their parents worked.
The menu incorporated elements of Alexa’s Hopi and Yakama heritage, melding southwestern and northwestern flavors and ingredients.
Javelina’s first events were more casual, serving an a la carte menu of comforting classics like frybread tacos and unique dishes by Alexa, like a roasted squash dish incorporating beans and hominy in an homage to the three sisters of beans, corn and squash.
As diners filed into the dimly lit restaurant, they chatted happily over cedar-bough adorned tables as Nicholas cruised the dining room, conversing with guests and taking orders. Alexa said she created the menu in collaboration with chef Steven Stimek.
The meal started with a lightly sweet soup of local butternut squash and apple topped with tart cranberry, crispy pepitas and a wisp of fennel fronds.
The second course was a rabbit leg braised with poblano peppers, garlic, and corn atop a soft blue corn cake, finished with puffed wild rice and homemade tajín. The savory, sour braising liquid enveloped the tender rabbit — which, for the unfamiliar, really does taste similar to chicken — complemented by the sweet, tender corn cake.
Javelina’s signature frybread appeared on the tasting menu, served beneath braised elk and grilled wild onion. The highlight of the frybread dish was the wojapi sauce, a sweet and tart berry sauce beloved by tribes in the Southwest, slicked under the braised elk.
As has become typical of Javelina’s events, the dinner served as a gathering place for Portland’s urban Indigenous community to come together and participate in a beloved cultural tradition: laughing loudly over a hearty, delicious meal.
For the third course of the dinner, the chef said she aimed to “Indigenize” the French cooking technique of en papillote, where a protein is lightly steamed inside a pouch of parchment paper. Javelina’s version was a steelhead trout steamed until tender and flaky in a cornhusk with a “three sisters mash” and a dollop of sunflower seed pesto. Javelina’s reinvention was a success, the corn husk locking in the moisture of the fish as it steamed.
The meal concluded on a sweet note with a huckleberry tartlet, the berries nestled in a crisp sunflower seed shell, a scoop of delicate hazelnut maple sorbet and pieces of roast pear. The tart paired well with an accompaniment of an Indigenous herbal tea.
As diners wrapped up their meals, Alexa flitted around the dining room, chatting and laughing with happy guests.
Javelina continues to expand and host more events. Two formal dinner services are scheduled this month: Feb. 25 at the Jeju restaurant space from 4-9 p.m., where Javelina will serve a five-course prix fixe dinner, and Feb. 28 at Street Disco where it will host another full-service dinner from 5-9 p.m. Reservations are recommended and dinners may sell out. More details are available on Javelina’s Instagram, @javelina.pdx.
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