Sometimes the most radical thing a chef can do is travel backward through time. While Portland’s food scene obsesses over the next trend—oat milk foam art, anyone?—Caraway Alexander decided the future of dining lies approximately 2,000 years ago.
Their new pop-up Salona proves that authentic flavors don’t need ring lights or hashtags to captivate modern palates. The concept emerged from Alexander’s deep fascination with history, not the glossy, sanitized version, but the nitty-gritty of how people existed, what their markets were like, what their day-to-day was like. This curiosity led to a journey into forgotten foods—ingredients and techniques that once defined civilizations but have since slipped from mainstream memory.
Working through Portland’s diverse restaurant scene, including stints at Akadi, Bollywood Theater, and Gado Gado, Alexander discovered something startling about ancient Italian cuisine while working at an Italian restaurant. The revelation was profound and Instagram-shattering: “There’s no tomatoes, there’s no eggplants, there’s no espresso, there’s no chocolate, there’s no peppers, there’s no pasta.”
In a city where food truck innovation meets James Beard acclaim, this might be the most audacious menu Portland has seen. Ancient Romans built their flavor profiles around honey for sweetness, fish sauce for umami depth, and olive oil for richness, alongside spices like celery and lovage seeds that have largely disappeared from modern European cooking, revealing the real story behind food flavors we often take for granted.
Salona’s debut on May 18 at Mayfly offered Portland diners a rare glimpse into this lost culinary world, though good luck making it TikTok-viral when your main seasoning predates the fall of the Western Empire. The menu featured pork belly with red wine reduction over spelt porridge, a dish that would have been familiar to Roman citizens two millennia ago. Barley-crusted chicken wings arrived golden and crisp, served with grape must that spoke to an era when wine was as essential as water.
The standout was perhaps the salad dressed with oenogarum—a blend of fish sauce, red wine, and olive oil that Alexander calls “the original salad dressing.” It’s a reminder that innovation often means looking backward, finding flavors that predate our assumptions about what Mediterranean cuisine should taste like.
Currently chef de cuisine at The Tavern at Heathman, Alexander has created something unprecedented in Portland’s food scene. Salona isn’t Italian cuisine, but rather a bridge between past and present that challenges diners to reconsider everything they think they know about ancient flavors—no filters required.
Salona offers more than just a meal for food lovers seeking their next culinary adventure—it’s a time machine served on a plate, proving that sometimes the most forward-thinking move is a journey into the past. Future pop-up events are planned throughout Portland, with announcements shared on Salona’s Instagram, where ancient recipes somehow look perfectly at home among the city’s endless stream of ramen bowls and artisanal donuts.
