Touché Restaurant & Bar
Touché Restaurant & Bar
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Touché Restaurant & Bar

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Touché Restaurant & Bar

Touché Restaurant and Bar, or simply Touché, was an Italian restaurant in Portland, Oregon's Pearl District, in the United States. Established by Frank Ernandes in 1995, the restaurant was housed in a former fire station and became known for its wood-fired pizzas and pasta.

In 2016, plans emerged for a developer to replace the building, along with others, to build a new 12-story apartment building. Touché closed in May 2017.

Touché was a "Mediterranean-influenced" Italian restaurant. Downstairs was a combined dining area and bar, and upstairs was a billiard hall with six tables, as well as backgammon, darts and Lotto. It was housed in a former fire station, built in 1913, and located on a 5,000-square-foot lot at the intersection of 14th Avenue and Glisan Street in Northwest Portland's Pearl District.

The restaurant became known for its wood-fired pizzas and pasta entrees, operating as late as 4 am. The appetizer menu included fried calamari with capers, chili flakes, garlic, parsley and fresh citrus juices. Entrees included lamb papadelle and grilled lamb with walnut hot sauce. The happy hour menu had gyros.

The firehouse was listed on the City of Portland's Historic Resource Inventory for its 20th-century Italian Renaissance architecture and historic importance. According to the Historic Resource Inventory, the building was designed for Engine and Truck Company #3 and was "one of four stations of similar design erected on the west side, all designed by Battalion Chief Lee Holden, father of the gas-driven fire boat. This station was originally designed for horse-drawn apparatus and was remodeled later to accommodate mechanized fire equipment." In 1967, the station was sold and the building served as a warehouse and freight outlet.

The building later housed Delevan's, described as the "hottest, hippest jazz joint in town", and Remo's. In 1989, David Sarasohn and Karen Brooks of The Oregonian said:

In 1980, with innocence, arrogance, optimism and obsessiveness, Portlander Tony Arnerich spent a small fortune converting an old firehouse ... into Portland's first fashion-forward restaurant. Almost overnight, the restaurant blossomed into a hip den of hot jazz, huevos rancheros and high art. Portland's first truly eclectic menu was born here. Delevan's was the first to mingle ethnic flavors with New American cooking notions and Northwest ingredients. But despite its trend-setter status, Delevan's closed only a few years later.

The Italian restaurant Remo's operated from 1983 until its foreclosure in 1991. Food such as pasta and desserts were served in the dining room upstairs; the downstairs lounge hosted jazz nightly. Sarasohn said of the restaurant: "For several years, Remo's has been one of Portland's foremost outlets of jazz Genoese, with nightly sessions downstairs in the lounge and more formal dining upstairs. The renovation of a Portland firehouse, originally turned into Delevan's, is impressively done, missing only some wiring to permit the downstairs music to make it upstairs."

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