Okta, Oregon’s Most Ambitious Tasting Menu Restaurant, Closes

Fine dining destination Okta, arguably the Pacific Northwest’s most ambitious restaurant, closed its doors this past Saturday, just over two years after its highly anticipated opening. The restaurant served as a companion to the ultraluxe Tributary Hotel, supported by a dedicated regenerative farm, fermentation lab, and larder. The team announced the restaurant’s closure via Instagram, noting that Okta chef Matthew Lightner, a Castagna alumnus who went on to run New York City’s two-Michelin-starred restaurant Atera, was leaving the project. The post implied Okta would continue in some form; it’s not yet clear how. “The Tributary Hotel and our farm and larder will continue to build on our vision of pairing excellence in hospitality and regenerative farming to share the story of this amazing place,” the caption reads.

Wholesale, Okta was unlike anything in Oregon. Despite the state’s reputation, no restaurant here paired a world-class fine dining structure with a dedicated farm, something like Blue Hill at Stone Barns or the French Laundry. For many, the restaurant proved McMinnville’s potential to grow into a celebrity wine country town like Napa. It also presented an adjusted vision of what fine dining might look like as cultural mores move away from the often-stuffy tradition—not just in Oregon, but across the world.

Reviews were pretty much unanimously positive, and Lightner was a semifinalist for a James Beard Award this year. His poetic menu of a dozen or so courses was delivered on precious and ornate plates by servers in matching suits, but also with a semi-casual grace. It was both comfortable and elegant. It was fun. (I once ate next to Brick House winemaker Doug Tunnell, who was wearing flip flops.) Lightner’s transportive dishes, with names like “friendship” and “pollinator,” focused storytelling and aimed to give diners a greater investment in the local ecology. The mission was “to capture the soul and biology of the Willamette Valley on plates,” our critic Karen Brooks wrote.

It’s unclear why the restaurant closed, or at least shifted its form. But it goes without saying that it’s difficult to sustain a restaurant whose tasting menu starts, not including wine or gratuity, at close to $300 per person. However egregious that number sounds, it’s on par with its peers around the country—tasting menus at the Nomas and Eleven Madison Parks of the world often cost similar, if not more.

And making this comparison is valid, looking at the cast: beyond Lightner, Okta’s general manager, Christine Langelier, came from famed east coast restaurants including Blue Hill at Stone Barns and Eleven Madison Park. Its sommelier, Ron Acierto, formerly of Departure and the Jory at Newberg’s Allison Inn, is also one of the most respected wine professionals in the region.

This project also marked Lightner’s return to Oregon, and with it a new—perhaps radically optimistic—attempt at building a fine dining restaurant fit to Oregon diners’ sensibilities. Lightner first made waves years ago cooking at Castagna, one of Portland’s most respected tasting menu restaurants. It was one of the city’s last fine dining destinations, but closed in 2023. Tercet, another restaurant with a similar format, closed around the same time. And Berlu, after chef Vince Nguyen won a James Beard Award for its highly refined Vietnamese tasting menu, changed to a more casual setup at the end of 2023.

The city’s surviving tasting menus tend to riff on the traditional song and dance. Le Pigeon turned to a tasting menu–only format during the pandemic, but it’s always played by its own punk set of rules, far outside the Michelin format. Langbaan, which has been booked solid for a decade, similarly thrives serving a radically adjusted version of the tasting menu, with a raucous energy and an ever-changing focus on regional Thai cuisines.

Okta may have been a shot at finding something similar at the very highest level. We’re looking to see what Lightner gets up to next, and what the team has planned after his departure. But the closure certainly speaks volumes about the state of fine dining.

Lightner and the larger Okta team have yet to respond to requests for comment.