A new star is already ablaze in Portland’s glittering galaxy of restaurants. I’m talking about a Tiki bar, a blast from the past gone modern by the name of Rhum, which opened last Saturday in the Old Port. It’s the brainchild of Jason Loring (Nosh and Slab) and Mike Fraser (Bramhall) plus a star-studded cast of chefs and mixologists who are killing it, as the saying goes.
Tiki bars in America were made famous by Trader Vic’s, a California hot spot born in the 1940s where the Mai Tai was invented to accompany Polynesian inspired fare. The San Francisco Trader Vic’s was perhaps the most renowned. It flourished as the watering hole for the city’s society illuminators who flocked there with unabashed glamour. I went there a few times when I lived in San Francisco years ago. Even then it was from another era.
