PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Established chef Aaron Adams probably hasn’t had to write a resumé in years — but if he were to write one, it’d be stacked.
From working at a resort in Guam, to opening his first restaurant in Jacksonville, to attending machining school in Portland, Adams has proven to be a guru in many trades. The chef’s latest resumé add-on would be his new vegan cocktail lounge Workshop Food and Drink, which neighbors his other Southeast Portland restaurant Fermenter.
Years before opening Fermenter in 2019, Adams lived in the Bay Area. He relocated from there in 1994 and went on to build his culinary skills in different places around the U.S.
Adams says his love of hospitality partially stemmed from his Cuban family in Miami, who he saw cook meals together as a child.
“As a young kid, I used to actually put on these little dinner parties for my friends, which are a lot of fun,” he said. “Also, I grew up listening to punk music and street music in general. I always obsessed about different subcultures, and I saw cooking as another subculture. There was this same kind of allure as punk or hip hop or anything else like that that had a language or a style.”
As an adult, Adams and his restaurants have developed a style of their own — his former fine-dining spot Farm Spirit featured vegan menu items, the “Kermenter brewpub” Fermenter has vegan dishes, and his newest venture Workshop offers plant-based fare as well.
Workshop got its name because that’s what it started out as: a fermentation workshop for Adams’ joint next door. And when deciding to turn the space into another restaurant, the chef figured he could take it as an opportunity to explore his Cuban heritage more, while modernizing the food with a vegan twist.
“A lot of Cuban restaurants serve this cuisine that you don’t even see that much in Cuba anymore because there are food shortages,” Adams said. “My imagination of my place is as if Cuba hadn’t been isolated since [the 1960s] and what that would look like with being involved in the world.”
Adams has used that imagination to build Workshop’s menu that includes his own interpretations of classic Cuban dishes like empanadas, black beans and rice, and “espaguetis picadillo” — which the restaurant’s website says would break his “abuela’s heart.”
But there are also “obscure things that people wouldn’t think of as Cuban,” according to Adams.
One particularly unique offering at Workshop is the seaweed caviar, the restaurant’s plant-based spin on a usually fishy favorite. The chef said he wanted to include caviar service so vegans can experience the luxury of eating the dish that isn’t typically available in vegan spaces.
As a cocktail lounge, though, Workshop wouldn’t be complete without an array of drinks. The new menu includes the typical boozy beverages beloved by customers, but Adams made sure to include a number of zero-proof mocktails for his wife who’s been sober for about nine years.
“I wanted to create a space where she felt good about hanging out because I think they’ve become a lot more sophisticated, but zero-proof options in the past have not always been the greatest,” he said. “It’s been really fun and useful to have that arsenal… My wife came over with some friends and she was having a drink and she was having a blast and she didn’t feel out of place.”
Workshop opened its doors to serve drinks — and food — on Sunday, Feb. 18, but its regular hours started on Thursday, Feb. 23. Walk into the new spot on 1407 SE Belmont Street, or make reservations in advance here.
The cocktail lounge is open from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Thursday and Sunday, and from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.