Imperial Eat like an emperor, drink like a president

Like Alexander the Great -- minus the Oedipus complex and Colin Farrell dye-job -- Portland's Vitaly Paley has his eyes set on conquering the entire land, and the Beard Award and Iron Chef winner is well on his way with today's opening of Imperial, his second Westside PDX joint and the first of two spots premiering this year.

Sitting next to downtown's posh Hotel Lucia, Imperial's a gigantic, rustically fancy joint loaded with chandeliers and ringed by exposed brick and a giant lumberjack landscape, amongst which you can nab all three meals, starting with breakfast/ weekend brunch scrambles, Dungeness crab croque madames, and coddled eggs that sound totally spoiled but're actually ultra-fresh, and very lightly cooked. During the afternoon you can grab Reubens, flat iron steaks, and burgers, while the dinner menu makes use of the gigantic, centerpiece wood-burning stove by firing up a spit-roasted lamb roll, housemade sausage, oyster-stuffed quail, sea bass not played by Cam Neely, and barrel-planked T Pork Secreto, essentially a thick slab of leek-covered pig.

The barman just so happens to be President of the Oregon Bartenders Guild, and he's concocted a menu featuring two draught 'tails in addition to the rum-and-rye Imperial Fizz, the Cynar/ rye/ mezcal East Of Eden, and the Nardini Amaro & bourbon New Money, presumably what Colin Farrell needed when he took part in S.W.A.T.