Ma Cher: Duo Behind Pastificio D’Oro Explores Cajun Seafood at Their New Concordia Spot

In the autumn of 2022, Chase Dopson and Maggie Irwin opened Pastificio d’Oro in a small stone courtyard just off the St. Johns main drag, a space formerly occupied by Gracie’s Apizza. The tiny Italian restaurant became a neighborhood landmark almost overnight, with a dedicated cadre of regulars and frequent lines out the door. Eater listed it on the Best Italian Restaurants in Portland, and the Oregonian called it “your favorite pasta cook’s favorite pasta restaurant.” Pastificio slung its last plate of spaghetti in May, and for their new venture, Dopson and Irwin spun the globe for 5,000 miles from the Italian Alps to the bayous of Louisiana. Their newest venture, Ma Cher (pronounced as one word and the r is silent), is a prix fixe residency focusing on high-end interpretations of Cajun food two nights a week at Killingsworth’s beloved Dame.

“[Pastificio] was basically born out of Covid. We lost our collective jobs,” Dopson recalls — “three jobs,” Irwin notes — “and we had to figure out what to do next.” Dopson and Irwin are both industry veterans: Dopson worked in kitchens, including Jacqueline and Toro Bravo, and Irwin did catering. So they knew that whatever they were going to do next, it would involve food. “And then we had the wonderful stimulus assistance,” Dopson recalls, “and we were like ‘We should use this money to start a business, open something.” “Isn’t it crazy,” Irwin adds, “how COVID gave us universal income and we all started businesses?” The dynamic between Dopson and Irwin is almost quintessentially back of house and front of house: Dopson is soft-spoken, contemplative, reluctant to commit on any subject that isn’t food-related. Irwin is very much the talker of the pair: quick with a joke, observation, or segue, and never at a loss for a relevant anecdote to whatever the subject at hand is.

Success in the food world can often lead to expansion, but Dopson and Irwin wanted to go in the other direction. Pastificio had a very limited menu (“Three sides, two pastas, bread, and dessert,” Irwin rattles off with practiced efficiency), and when they sold out, they sold out. “There’s only so many of us, we were a small crew,” Dopson says. “Especially when you’re hand rolling versus using a [pasta] extruder… you can only make so many portions.” But Dopson and Irwin say that was a feature, not a bug: they wanted to keep the team small (at the beginning, it was just the two of them), keep the craft hands-on, and feature a mix of carefully selected ingredients. Ma Cher is even more laser-focused: There’s only one 6 p.m. seating a night, and there’s just the one rotating multi-course menu.

That may be more manageable from a logistics perspective, but Dopson and Irwin say it also allows them to source ingredients that would be difficult to place on a traditional counter service restaurant menu. “We have been able to get really high-quality sustainable seafood from small producers in Louisiana,” Dopson says. “We’re getting some really nice shrimp from one guy, on one boat, in Louisiana.” Dopson and Irwin say they’re focusing on “sea Cajun” cuisine at the moment, which means tracking down bayou staples like Gulf shrimp and blue crab, and they’re looking to get a crawfish hookup in the spring. “We literally text [our shrimp supplier], and we’re like, ‘Hey, can we get this much shrimp?’ and he overnights it to us, and we pick it up at the airport in styrofoam containers,” Irwin explains. “We call it the ‘shrimp-ment,’” she notes.

The price range has jumped up a couple of levels too: While the Pastificio mains were in the 30-dollar range, a night at Ma Cher runs in the 80s. Portland is no stranger to high-end prix fixe and reservation-only supper clubs; for example, a night at PaaDee offshoot Langbaan runs about $130 and regularly sells out its 24-person dining room. But as Eater’s rundown of the best tasting menus notes, “Portland is a city best known for its casual, mid-priced restaurants and food carts,” and “many of the city’s finest tasting menu restaurants — Beast, Holdfast, Tercet, Castagna — have closed.” There seems to be a local allergy to conspicuous luxury that can make high-ticket destination restaurants a tough sell. New ventures like Ma Cher must make a strong case that the price tag translates into a compelling dining experience.

The food itself speaks quite eloquently in that regard. A recent visit featured a menu that included rounds of sweet potato biscuits swimming in butter; crispy, fried shrimp boulettes; and marinated crab legs. The main consisted of braised collards, a selection of pickled okra and beets, with a crab jambalaya for a centerpiece: a silky bed of rice suffused with a rich broth and luxuriously tender strips of crab meat. And of course no Southern meal would be complete without a slice of pecan pie peeking out under a dollop of buttermilk-whipped cream.

A spread like that, without a flashy protein like steak or lobster as the centerpiece, demands expert tone control and a mastery over a variety of textures that may be unfamiliar to Northwestern palettes. “It’s a lot of pot watching and a lot of knowing how to use ingredients,” Irwin says. The couple says they’ve been dialing in their process since well before Pastificio closed. “It’s also been tricky testing these recipes at home,” Dopson notes. “I mean, you can’t really make a small pot of jambalaya.”

On a quiet fall evening in the elegant Dame dining room, it certainly feels like the couple’s Louisiana gambit is paying out. The assembled diners, mostly well-dressed couples and a small group in the corner, chat casually about the upcoming ski season and Paul Thomas Anderson’s filmography. But as the dishes start rolling out of the kitchen the ambient chatter drops away almost instantly, leaving only the muted clink of forks on plates and the occasional request to “pass the butter” and “oh my gosh, try these crab legs.”

It remains to be seen if Ma Cher will remain a permanent fine dining fixture on Killingsworth, or if Dopson and Irwin have some more culinary globe trekking in store. For now though, everyone’s struggling to save just enough room for that promised slice of pie.

Ma Cher at Dame (2930 NE Killingsworth Street) is open Monday and Tuesday from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. by reservation only.