Small plates adorn an Oregon 'wine pub'

When Kimberly Bernosky, 43, and her business partner Courtney Storrs, 36, opened their cozy "wine pub" on the east side of the Willamette River in Portland in May 2002 and called it Noble Rot they were surely sending a signal. Theirs would be the kind of place where concepts are constantly in play and occasionally in collision: one part neighborhood joint, one part hipster hangout, one part dressy Right Bank bar à vins. To your left a young CFO; to your right some tattooed welder dude.

At The Rot - as regulars call it - you can perch at the bar or settle into one of a few small tables or booths and order either from the interesting and varied wine list, or just ask for something you see on the bottle-lined shelves that serve as decor here. (Did I say the restaurant is also a retail shop - something the laws in Massachusetts don't permit?) The menu consists of small plates, served tapas style, each precise and finely-tuned. While sipping a frisky French rose and nibbling a salad of tiny greens topped with a creamy fresh goat cheese, you might chat with chef Gregory Smith as he finishes dishes flying out of his Lilliputian kitchen. His post is right behind the bar. Later, move on to a brace of roasted marrow bones and a simple Bourgogne rouge. Once parked on a stool here, you never want to leave.

The place is edgily chic, but the wine list isn't the sort to scare anyone away. Labels local to the Pacific Northwest - Oregon's celebrated pinots and Washington state cabernets - are well represented, but so are European wines. There can't be too many spots where you can order Chateauneuf du Pape by the glass. This is one. "We like to keep the comfort level high, so we offer familiar, inexpensive, easily understood wines," says Bernosky, whose background is in wine retailing. "But for experienced customers we've got more complex and interesting things." Examples of this venturesome spirit include a fully dry Tokaji from Hungary - something we've not seen elsewhere.

At least five different wine flights are available nightly. Flights consist of three two-ounce pours designed to allow tasters to readily compare and contrast sips with some common theme, and cost between $8 and $14. Those keen to acquaint themselves with nature's own noble rot can opt for a flight of botrytised dessert wines. The charge to delve into anything you see on the shelf is a modest $7 corkage fee over the retail price. In Oregon, as in Massachusetts, you can take home what you don't finish.

Smith, 28, who spent a year and a half in Charlie Trotter's kitchen in Chicago, grows his micro greens on the restaurant's roof. (I haven't mentioned that the restaurant is part garden? Sorry.) They're fresh-snipped. On the second floor, in his close but well-equipped second kitchen, Smith cooks for and serves guests who reserve the space for private dinner parties. Cooking and wine classes go on there, too.

The restaurant's compact footprint in this mixed-use, none too chi-chi neighborhood gives no indication of how much is going on inside. Every square foot, it seems, has been put to use and feels productive and comfortable to be in. In fine weather, the big garage door that forms one wall of the place opens right onto the street.

The narrow lot really leaves no way for the restaurant to grow, and Bernosky and Storrs say they have no plans to move to more spacious digs. That means that for the foreseeable future you can expect to have to wait your turn for a chance to cop a table or a spot at the bar here.

We guess that would be the rotten part.

Noble Rot, 2724 SE Ankeny St., Portland, Ore., 503-233-1999.noblerotpdx.com.

Stephen Meuse can be reached at onwine@comcast.net