Birds, banter and bebop: Welcome to BIRDFAT, Portland’s salon-inspired pop-up

When Tiquette Bramlett first met Jonathan Biko Mandela Jones she immediately knew they were kindred spirits.

“You always know when you find the found family, it’s one of those immediate connections,” said Bramlett. “It was like ‘Oh, there’s other people like me trying to do things out here.’”

Chair of the Oregon Wine Board, Bramlett was the first Black woman hired to lead a winery in a major U.S. region and last year launched her own wine brand, Henderson Ave.

The pair met at a BIPOC Block Party thrown by “Our Legacy Harvested” a nonprofit Bramlett founded which aims to celebrate diversity and inclusion in Oregon’s wine industry.

“He was somebody that understood what I was trying to do in cultivating community and he was trying to do the same exact thing in Salem,” she said.

Jones is a two-time James Beard Award-nominated chef and the estate chef at Bryn Mawr Vineyards. Previously, he owned Epilogue Kitchen, a Salem restaurant whose menu drew inspiration from the Black diaspora.

Last summer, Jones closed Epilogue but that presented an opportunity for the pair to reconnect.

“When I announced that I was closing the restaurant it was within like an hour, she messaged me,” he said. “We hadn’t talked in a while and [she was] the first person who reached out.”

During that conversation, the duo found a silver lining: the chance to finally collaborate on something together.

Modeled after the salons of the Harlem Renaissance and inspired by the music of Charlie “Bird” Parker, their pop-up, BIRDFAT, is billed as an evening of live jazz, food and community. Bramlett and Jones spoke with “All Things Considered” host Crystal Ligori about the pop-up whose menu revolves around “all things bird.”

The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Crystal Ligori: Can you talk about what BIRDFAT is and how it came to be?

Jonathan Biko Mandela Jones: The base of it was kind of a joke. I was working in the kitchen at Bryn Mawr, I was working with some quail, frying it in duck fat, and I was describing it as “triple bird fat” and David Lauer was like, “Oh, bird fat would be a great name for something,” and it just kind of stuck.

From the inception of Epilogue, I’ve been wanting to do something that was inspired by salon. The restaurant was always more of a gathering space than it was like a restaurant. The food for me was always second place to the feeling of being there and what it could foster and the conversations that it could create. And so, with that in my head, the new freedom of not having restaurant ownership and now a name for it, that was sort of the trifecta to be able to really launch this idea.

Ligori: Can you talk a little bit about the music component of BIRDFAT?

Tiquette Bramlett: I think it’s a big piece for both of us, for the Henderson Ave. side, for me. When I am tasting wines, I hear music. For me, it always completes the story and helps create the vibe of what you want the people to feel in your space.

I come from a musical family, and so any way that we can implement that and have that energy flowing through the space, it’s a no-brainer. So that was one of the first things that we aligned on immediately when he said BIRDFAT and Charlie Parker, I was like, “Yes, I see the whole image.“ It just came together in my head, seeing the salon energy and having that live music in the space really changes the complete environment of it because a playlist is great — we love a playlist — but there is something about hearing that percussion in real time and when you’re eating and connecting with the people next to you, it amplifies the entire experience.

Jones: My dad was a saxophonist, I play saxophone and Charlie Parker is my all-time favorite jazz musician, and so being able to honor him in this way is really important, but If we’re gonna do that, then I might as well flex a little bit and do everything bird-themed.

When I do a concept, I do the concept as deeply as I can. If BIRDFAT is the name, if it’s playful, and if we’re gonna highlight Charlie Parker, all of the food is either made with a version of a bird fat or bird. All of the cocktails are being done by my longtime bartender, Iona Tong, a lot of them are washed in some various bird fats.

Ligori: BIRDFAT is a pop-up, happening just once this month and once next month. What do you hope that people will get out of it and who do you want to see there?

Bramlett: Oh my God, I want to see everybody there because I think for both of us, we really want to be able to create a space that can foster this community and new connections. This one is for everybody. We want everybody to come and be a part of this with us.