This month we’re featuring me -- Lisa Schroeder, the chef and owner here at Mother’s Bistro & Bar. It takes a lot of coordination to make a Mother of the Month happen and this month has been a crazy one, so I chose myself! I’m featuring some of my favorite Italian dishes (some of which I offer next door, at my other restaurant, Mama Mia Trattoria). I qualify as a M.O.M. since I am a mother to Stephanie (one of our servers) and grandmother to Isabella and Taylor, 5 and 3 ½ years old respectively. I was born in Philadelphia and moved to Israel in 1975. When I became pregnant with Stephanie, I realized that I needed to be near family so I moved back to America in 1978. Needing to support my family, I went to work when my daughter was two, and pursued a career in marketing because that was where I could make a living. I also catered on the side, so had little time to cook for my own family and ended up ordering a lot of take-out food. Then one day I had an epiphany. While there was plenty of take-out food – Chinese, Mexican, Italian – there was no place to get “Mother Food” (food that I would make if I only had the time). That’s when I decided that what the world needed was a restaurant called “Mother’s,” where I’d serve food made with love, like a mother would make for her children, and serve it in a warm and fuzzy environment. I spent the next 8 years working toward my dream. I went to cooking school at The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, worked in four-star restaurants in New York and France to learn the way of doing things, and worked as a chef for two years at Besaw’s here in Portland where I earned my “homey” food stripes. You are now sitting in my dream come true, and this month I’ll be serving you the Italian dishes I often dream about.

Mother's Bistro & Bar serves up slow-cooked food in the heart of downtown Portland. Featuring authentic cooking from mothers around the world, signature dishes include pot roast, meat loaf, chicken and dumplings and crab cakes, as well as featured dishes from a different mother each month.

With Lisa Schroeder's Comfort Food, everything is made from scratch using the best possible ingredients -- great salads, soups, homemade biscuits and desserts, too. In addition to the sunny dining room, the separate Velvet Lounge with chandeliers and gilded mirrors is perfect for a pre-or post-theatre cocktail. Distressed off-white furniture, mother-themed art and press clips featuring the owner set the scene. Families and couples line up six deep for weekend brunch to sample eggs Benedict with hollandaise and migas--scrambled eggs, tortilla strips and chipotle sour cream. During lunch and dinner, a multiethnic comfort-food menu is bolstered by monthly specials featuring an honorary mother's recipes. Dinners offer meat loaf, steak frites and the macaroni and cheese du jour with prosciutto and roasted garlic. restaurant, portland, oregon, home, comfort, savory, Mother’s cooking, Mom's cooking, Woman Chef, Chef, Lisa Schroeder, Warm,Cozy, Comfortable, Comfort, Chicken & dumplings, Meatloaf, Pot roast, Chopped liver, Chicken soup, Burger