Yeah, it’s 100% gluten-free
Images by Ross Maloof
Whether you drop into Bastion or Fallow’s Rest Wild (reservations accepted), you will find outstanding menus and attentive service. Dreamt up by the wife-and-husband team Marné Minard and Paul Arnold, both restaurants are in the Sellwood-Moreland neighborhood, just steps from one another on Milwaukee Street.
Before opening Bastion’s and Fallow’s Rest Wild, Minard and Arnold were deeply embedded in the food industry—Minard worked for 18 years as a nutritionist, while Arnold worked over 25 years in the back of the house, including being a chef. Their unique culinary backgrounds shine through at their restaurants, where offerings are 100% free of gluten, dairy, refined sugar, soy, corn, seed oil, and preservative gum. Minard’s rationale? “We believe in providing a safe and nourishing space for everyone to eat at, without concern for cross-contamination or hidden unnecessary ingredients,” she says.
Bastion’s opened in September of 2021 as a restaurant and bakery, and Fallow’s Rest Wild, an evening destination, opened Wednesday. July 17th, 2024. “We’re here to take care of everybody who walks in the door overwhelmingly and provide a safe dining space for people with dietary restrictions and allergies,” Minard says. “But I also want people to know there’s something for everyone here.”
Arnold continues, “When customers discover us, they’re in tears at the register because they felt that they couldn’t eat anywhere, and then they find our place where they can eat everything. Or sometimes when I’m delivering food to a table, someone stops me and says thank you for providing this space. It does not go unnoticed. We provide a menu that they trust, and they’re so grateful. This happens in both restaurants. Often, five people go out to eat together, and one has dietary restrictions. That person must find the one thing they can eat on the menu. Here, it’s kind of the opposite. Everyone at the table can order anything on the menu and is satisfi ed. When we first opened Bastion, people would try to return their food and say, ‘I ordered this on gluten-free bread.’ We’d smile and say, ‘Yeah, it’s 100% gluten-free.’ They’re shocked because it doesn’t taste like it.”
A lack of similar spaces sparked Bastion’s and Fallow’s Rest Wild ideas.
“We’ve never found a place we want to eat at that follows the same ethos we share,” Arnold says. “We wanted to build restaurants that we wanted to go to and eat at. Often when people with dietary restrictions dine out, they’re missing something. It’s not that they’re missing the meat but the flavor profile of a more traditional dining experience. We all like to eat food that makes us feel good, whether restricted or not. If you try to find a restaurant that’s gluten-free and vegan, often it’s also flavor-free and full of sugar and added fat to cover up what it doesn’t have in it. We don’t want anyone to feel like they are settling.” Everyone deserves the right to celebrate and gather around food. So we’re bringing that hospitality back for all diners.”
Minard went to culinary school in Thailand and became aware of flavors from all over the world. She weaves in these global influences at both restaurants with dishes like a five-spice tuna salad that uses Moroccan and Egyptian spices. We also feature dishes made with dried Persian black lime. “We’re simply using the tools the world offers, and that’s a lot of ground to cover.”
But don’t be fooled—at their core, the menus at Bastion’s and Fallow’s Rest Wild are profoundly local and seasonally informed. Minard particularly enjoys going to the farmer’s market and seeing the produce and protein that changes with the ebbs and flows of seasons. “At Fallow’s Rest Wild, you’ll taste wild-caught Alaskan salmon from Lake Iliamna, and hook-and-line caught albacore tuna from Oregon,” she explains. “The chicken is from Cedar Springs Farm, a small producer near Trout Lake Creek, and the beef is from Carman Ranch.”
Minard and Arnold have baked their breads from scratch since the beginning. Their bakery at Bastion began as a “teeny tiny little pastry room” at just under 1,000 square feet, including the dining space. The duo quickly outgrew those digs and built an off-site commissary kitchen space for baking and prep. They now sell four dozen loaves of four varieties out of their retail case daily and ship nationwide.
Another must-try retail item? The bone broth. The team at both restaurants use laying hens to make the broth, employing a whole-animal butchering practice to repurpose the parts of the chicken that would otherwise go to waste. The resulting broth is collagen-rich, nutrient-dense, and intensely flavorful—perfect for drinking or using as a base for soups.
Another surprising element about Bastion? Their marketing is 100% word-of-mouth. Many of those spreading the word about Bastion are people in Portland’s holistic community, like naturopathic doctors, acupuncturists, and nutritionists. “Health coaches and fitness folks come in, learn about the menu, and then spread that information to their patients and clients. People walking or driving by see it’s busy and wonder, “Oh, what’s that? Bastion’s star is rising. Bastion’s third anniversary falls on the third week of September 2024—the team has done zero paid marketing in those three years and plans to continue that approach with both restaurants.
The bar program at Fallow’s Rest Wild originated with the current bartender, Robbie Wilson, who “had this crazy idea that the bar would be refined sugar and dairy-free,” Arnold says. While the team has not yet reached this goal (they haven’t been able to find tonic water with quinine that doesn’t have sugar or corn syrup), they’re working hard to make it happen. They make many of their tinctures in-house. But the fascinating thing about the bar program is that every cocktail on the list is designed to support one of the body systems, whether skin or respiratory, reproductive or circulatory. They’re also all available in nonalcoholic forms.
When Minard and Arnold bought the property for Fallow’s Rest Wild, they found a 700-bottle cellar, which now informs their current wine offerings. The goal is eventually to replace these bottles with more local wines from smaller winemakers who use organic and biodynamic practices. Today, diners at Fallow’s Rest Wild can enjoy biodynamic Oregon, French, and Italian wines that are biodynamic.
Minard and Arnold are determined to support more sustainable choices—for themselves, the future of the earth, and their customers. “Our core value is taking overwhelming care of people. That is what we want to do,” says Minard.
