Meet Bruce Carey

At the restaurants that bear his name – Clarklewis (and the late Zefiro, Bluehour, and Saucebox) – Bruce Carey lends his particular brand of attention to detail. This standard of excellent food, presentation, and service is a Carey hallmark. It’s certainly how he is remembered by those who were there at Stephanie Pearl Kimmel’s Excelsior Café in Eugene in the ’80s: seemingly everywhere at once, providing top-notch hospitality.

Carey and compatriots Joe Rogers, Christopher Israel, and Monique Siu helped change the restaurant landscape in Portland. They didn’t invent great food, style, and service, but they elevated the experience of dining and polished it to a high shine.

Carey is likely the only restaurateur in Portland with a Master’s degree in Arts Administration. In another life, he might now be at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.—an early ambition—or leading an interior design studio. As it is, the modern spaces he has created with the help of Portland’s best contemporary architects are stylish expressions of his refined aesthetic, sometimes even decorated with eclectic pieces from his personal art and object collection.

In San Francisco, he worked at both the James Beard Award–winning Zuni Café and Fog City Diner. While in the Bay Area, Carey met Christopher Israel, who had just completed his art history degree at Berkeley and was working at Square One under Joyce Goldstein.

When Carey and Israel moved to Portland, “We were thinking about opening a restaurant, because compared to San Francisco there were very few casual-fine places to eat,” Carey recalls. “We had no jobs, but with blind faith we told the landlord on our rental application that we were going to start our own business.” That restaurant became the legendary Zefiro at NW 21st and Glisan. Zefiro opened in 1990 with Monique Siu, whom Carey and Israel had met during catering work at Briggs and Crampton and Ron Paul.

In the thirty-plus years since Zefiro’s debut, Carey and his collaborators went on to open Saucebox, Bluehour, and 23Hoyt. In 2007, Carey acquired SE Portland’s Clarklewis. Bluehour, Saucebox and 23Hoyt closed in the early 20’s in the context of the pandemic.