Malka

We’re back for our final weekend. What a wallop. If you have a reservation tonight, please do be careful on your commute. If you need to cancel your reservation, that is entirely understandable, but you’d be doing us a great kindness if you cancel on Resy as soon as possible. That gives us the chance to fill your seats with the many, many folks who were disappointed by our recent closure and those who have been eagerly waiting for a chance to have a last meal with us.

In the spirit of honesty, we’re super stressed out over here: no wine deliveries, devilish slippery, lots of food to remake, lots of sad closing feelings to harness, lots of high functioning in weird conditions to do, and so on and so on. Thank you for being gentle with us right now.

Snow is doing tons of things to people all over the city. Fun things, pretty things, brutal things, inconvenient things, dangerous things. At 46th and Division, the snow feels to me like a heavy-handed metaphor for the whole Malka experience, but I’ve had it up to here (a high place) with metaphors.

However, we love you, we’re proud of ourselves, and we’re thankful for you! Hang on and keep safe 🌬️🦥

It’s me again, feeling very sad this morning. The roads are too icy for staff and customers to safely drive to and from the restaurant, so we just can’t be open tonight. This is really hard, given that it’s our last week, and tonight would’ve been the last night for several of our sweet staff and of course, last Malka meals for many beloved regulars. There’s just no getting around it, though. I appreciate your kindness and understanding. We will most likely be able to be open tomorrow and for the rest of our final weekend, as long as it’s safe to be open.

“The Snow Queen” by Ben Kutcher, 1930

Weds, February 22nd: Closed for the night.

Well, friends, what can be done? There’s too much snow. The porch is devilish slippery even with all the salt Colin put on, the roads are doubtless gonna be more treacherous the later it becomes, and nobody was able to show up for their 5pm reservations. With these cold hard facts to contend with, we’ve decided to finish cooking for the people who made it in so far and then close for the night. It’s very sad, considering we’ve only got a few days left, but there’s really nothing for it.

Wishing you all safe and warm evenings. Love, Jess

Angel of Snow by Rockwell Kent

***Continued from the slides above. Please read those first!***

Without getting too granular or too grand, there is plenty in the news about the questionable sustainability of restaurants/current food systems, and we are not immune to the same systemic issues that are causing many other restaurants to close, rising food costs being a big factor for us, among others.

Now:
The love I have for you who supported us so faithfully these past three years and the love I have for our staff past and present, who worked hard and lit up the house like a miracle, goes way beyond my powers of expression. That warmth will stay with me in memory for the rest of my life. I am so proud to have done this. We are so proud to have served you. With everything that I am, everything Malka is and was, we thank you.

A note to good employers: some truly exceptional people within our ranks may still be seeking jobs by the time we close. If you’ve got vacancies, please don’t hesitate to send me a message, if I might help make those connections.

Photo by ✨

Unfortunate update: A wave of positive Covid cases on our staff has made it impossible for us to be safely open at all this week. We will also be closed the following holiday week and will reopen on November 30th.

Everybody battling sickness is recovering at different rates, and we are doing our best to look after them and send them soups. I definitely have high hopes at this point that they will be right as rain in a couple days or so.

Times being what the are, the financial loss of another week right before our Thanksgiving break is significant for both the people who work here and the business. I’ll confess it feels uncomfortable to include that in this update, since money-talk is unseemly, and I have no positive conclusion to the thought. But I have a weird pact with myself to be as honest on social media as I can stand to be, so there you have it. We’ll be alright, I think, just a bit more strapped.

Some good news is that Julian’s pop-up is still on! He and those helping him are testing negative, so that’s a mercy, anyhow.

This has been a sharp reminder that we are not out of the woods with Covid, and we will continue caution and hope for a safe season when we come back from the break. Love to you all,
Jess

Hi everybody, I’ve got a new pop-up to announce, and it’s going to be a beautiful one. In my life at Malka, one of greatest joys is opening the space to the talent and thoughtfulness of others in the form of pop-ups. Here comes a new voice in the house from a much loved presence in the Malka kitchen.

Julian of is such a lovely person, a joy to work with, and every plate of food I’ve tasted from his imagination is vivid and delicious to eat, equal parts refreshing and indulgent. He is a great chef who’s done pop-ups in Mexico City, and he’s hoping to let Portland know what he means by “a series of flavors worth sharing with an empty stomach and an open heart.”

Julian’s 5 course pop-up dinner is this Monday, November 21, with a 5pm and 7:30pm seating. Tickets are $85/pp with vegetarian and meat options for each course. To reserve, DM or email [email protected] with the number of people in your party and your preferred seating time.

Last thing:
I encourage you to read what he’s written on his post introducing this pop-up because it is very, very sweet ✨

Early winter sunlight and winter cooking at the Malka house.
Photos by and , beautiful glass dish in the 3rd photo made by (check her out!)

Pancake!

Kind of new to our menu and bringing us lots of comfort and happiness—
She’s a Jazzy Cat:

Vegetable pancake with chickpea flour, schmaltz roasted potatoes, baby yu choy & baby bok choy, onions, garlic chives, zucchini, and sweet corn. Served with sour cream, lemon, radish pickles, and black vinegar chili dipping sauce.

Laura of warmly invites you to a cozy night at malka Next Monday, November 7th. Come enjoy parsnip soup decked with glazed onions and quince, winter squash gnocchi in brown butter and vadouvan cream, duck with elderberry and plum wine, braised greens and root vegetable gratin in Taleggio bèchamel, ending with a decadent pumpkin spice cake layered with chocolate ganache.
If, like me, you’ve been to other pop-ups, you know Laura is a talented chef who makes soul-satisfying fare that puts us lucky ducks in a very good place. If you haven’t been yet, this is a great chance to see what I’m talking about, catch this beguiling autumnal wave, and relish the flavors of the season in the hands of a total pro.
Tickets are $75/pp with optional wine pairing for $35. Both indoor seating and heated patio seating is available. To reserve, email [email protected] with the number of people in your party and your preferred seating time between 5pm-9pm.
🍁💫🍁🦦🍁

I am deeply proud to announce that the talented and kind (and famous 💫 superstar) .che, author of newly released cookbook The Vegan Chinese Kitchen, is holding a pop-up dinner here at Malka this Monday, October 17th. We are lucky enough to work with Hannah, and her knowledge and sweet spirit make this a brighter place to be.
Hannah has been working on this pop-up concept for quite some time, and Monday’s dinner will be its debut. She has designed five-courses featuring ingredients nourishing to the body during the fall season, according to the wisdom of TCM, or traditional Chinese food therapy, with medicinal mushrooms, local Oregon produce, and her own carefully nurtured ferments. I encourage you to read the stunning menu on slide 5, which gives me an actual thrill every time—it sounds such a treat. The entire menu is completely vegan, gluten free, and frankly, gorgeous.
Seats are already half sold out, so if this sounds like a dream experience for you, I recommend taking hasty action. There will be two seatings, one at 5pm and the other at 7:30pm, with space available inside or on the patio. Seats are $85/person, and there will be signed copies of Hannah’s book available if you’re interested.
To reserve, head to the link in bio . We hope to see you Monday!
🍁🌼🌿🍁🌼🌿

Flaking golden pastry, melted Oregon soft-ripened cheese, roasted apples at the height of appleness, mustard seeds, shallots, and vinegar on perfect greens! Please support my gifted friend Laura by reserving a seat to her autumnal embrace of a dinner on Monday, 10/10. To reserve, scoot over to the link in bio .

Hi there!

It’s been a long stretch since I’ve given you an update on what our deal even is at Malka these days. You are our beloved community and the reason we exist, so I feel I owe you an honest progress report.
We’ve been doing indoor and outdoor dining exclusively for almost few months now, and a lot of things are genuinely getting better as a result! Most excellently: our food is going out of the kitchen and landing on tables hot, on real plates and not boxes. Our business is seriously flirting with profitability and sustainability, and the pay for our staff is improving.
But shocking to no one who knows this industry, our troubles are not over. While we’ve solved some old problems, we’ve created a few new ones. We’re not immune to the classic problems that are part of running a restaurant (too many costs, difficulty finding staff, summer is hot, that sort of thing). Without pulling you all too deep into this vortex, I’ll just say that you may have noticed the results—we’ve lately been closed on Sundays, we’ve made some extra mistakes during service, and we’re still unable to add takeout orders to our daily schedule.
We will be closed this Sunday as we’ve had to be for the past two Sundays, mainly because many of our beloved crew are also young scholars going off to university to pursue their futures (we love and miss you Evan, Elisabeth, and Syd!). It’s been a heck of a wallop finding replacements for those young culinarians (miss you too, Chef Brophy), and we just don’t have the staff to get through the week right now. We’re working on it.
Our troubles have also prevented us from doing takeout, causing me to receive more than a few expressions of disappointment. To be honest, it hurts very much to disappoint you all, and sometimes the pressures of trying to cook our best, protect the welfare of our dear staff, protect the experiences of our dear customers, fix busted equipment, clean metaphorical and actual spills, welcome and train new members of staff, etc. etc. and all with very limited resources feels like much too much.
In the meantime while we sort ourselves out, I cherish your tolerance, patience, warmth, and generous support.