Terra Mae: A Portland Restaurant That Knows Exactly What It’s Doing, and Who It’s Feeding

Terra Mae Portland

Terra Mae: A Portland Restaurant That Knows Exactly What It’s Doing, and Who It’s Feeding

I grew up in Hawai‘i, where Japanese food wasn’t “cuisine” — it was just food. Everyday food. The kind you ate at your auntie’s table, after school, in slippers. Rice with furikake. Bentos wrapped in wax paper. Broths so delicate you could hear them exhale. I say this only because I came into Terra Mae expecting to understand it — or at least to recognize it.

But Terra Mae wasn’t familiar. Not exactly. It was something more layered, more story-driven. The kind of place that offers echoes of where you’ve been while nudging you toward somewhere you’ve never tasted before.

We recently moved to Portland, Oregon from New York, and though we occasionally crave the kind of attentive dining that city does so well, we’ve outgrown the white-tablecloth hush and performative service. What we want now — and rarely find — is that golden middle: a place that makes you feel cared for without asking you to pretend you’re not still a person in shoes.

Terra Mae is that place.

From the moment Jason and I arrived, everything felt like it had been placed there with care. The dining room, perched on the second floor of Cascada Spa, is wrapped in Gatsby-green velvet, glowing in dim light like a secret supper club. A living wall spills across one side; above our table—that portrait: Terra Mae, Mãe, Motherland. It felt like a welcome and a thesis all at once.

Our server, Heidi, led us through the menu like a storyteller rather than a salesperson. The drinks arrived first — mine, a Ube Colada with purple yam and coconut that landed like velvet on the tongue. Jason’s Rye Freezer carried a grassy, alpine bitterness that made his eyebrows lift. Each sip was signal enough: this place doesn’t coast.

Terra Mae Portland

Then came the wasabi salad, and I need to stop here. I’ve had wasabi. I thought I knew wasabi. But I’d never tasted it like this — clear, clean, radiant. The greens tasted alive, the vinaigrette rang like a bell. I don’t even like salads, yet I’m still thinking about that one. I’ll be diving into wasabi in its pure form now — they woke something up in me.

Terra Mae Portland

The dumplings followed — hand-rolled that morning, filled with something rich, almost smoky, served in a Japanese curry so soulful I asked for the recipe. Denied. They laughed. I get it. The sauce was more memory than condiment — spiced without spectacle, sweet without nostalgia. It clung and lingered, then let go.

And then, delicately arranged on a shallow plate, came the bluefin o-toro — the fattiest, most prized section of the tuna belly. It makes up only 2–3% of the entire fish, which they break down right there in-house. What arrived was pale pink and lightly marbled, glistening like raw silk. It didn’t taste like fish. It tasted like gravity. Soft, silent, impossible to forget.

Terra Mae Portland

We ended with the Fisherman’s Stew — saffron-laced dashi with shellfish folded like secrets. A dish that tasted ancestral. Like someone’s great-grandmother had whispered it into the pot.

About midway through the meal, Colby, the GM, leaned in with that signature spark in his eye and said, “You know, this is a female-led kitchen.” It wasn’t a brag—it was reverence. And in a world where fewer than 7% of executive chefs in fine dining are women, it landed with weight.

At Terra Mae, that leadership doesn’t belong to one voice — it’s a duet.

Terra Mae Portland

Chef Megan Sky, a Portland native with deep Portuguese roots, built her culinary foundation on curiosity. She grew up experimenting with whatever she found in the kitchen cabinets, turning pantry odds and ends into something vibrant and layered. After cutting her teeth in South American and Argentinian kitchens across Oregon—cuisines that came naturally to her, having grown up in a Mexican-American household—she felt the pull of something deeper. A trip to Portugal changed everything. There, working alongside some of the country’s most respected chefs, she discovered the true heartbeat of her heritage: simplicity, seasonality, community. That ethos runs through every bite of her menu.

Alongside her is Chef Jules Boyd, who brings 15 years of experience from Hawai‘i and a heritage stitched with Pacific Islander, Japanese, and Portuguese influence. Taught by her Grandma Annie and shaped by the kitchens of chefs like Peter Merriman and Sam Choy, Jules is as fluent in fire and smoke as she is in soy, vinegar, and broth. Her deep understanding of Japanese butchery and her Hawaiian paniolo uncle’s wild game cooking shows up in every balanced dish — built with both memory and muscle. Her food has weight. It remembers things.

Together, Megan and Jules don’t just co-lead—they co-compose. Their voices are different, but their rhythm is the same. Their menu isn’t a fusion in the trendy sense—it’s a call-and-response. One brings coastal Portugal, the other deep Hawai‘i. One builds slow, the other strikes sharp. And in every plate, you feel both. Not just as chefs, but as women who’ve fought to lead kitchens on their own terms—with rigor, humility, and zero need to prove anything.

As we were leaning back, letting the flavors sink in, Colby told us the story of a Portuguese ship that wrecked off the coast of Japan in the 1500s. The surviving sailors brought food traditions with them, including battered fried vegetables—peixinhos da horta—that centuries later evolved into tempura. I’d heard whispers of that history, but hearing it here, mid-bite, as smoky sauces and crisp textures crossed our plates—it hit different. Suddenly every element of this meal carried more narrative weight. This wasn’t fusion—it was legacy with a flame under it.

I joked with Colby, “If I hadn’t loved it, I’d have given you the polite tap‑tap‑and‑nod.” Instead, I was beaming. Talking too much. Living inside the chewy little universes each bite created.

He gestured toward the kitchen. “That’s my dad,” he said. And there he was — Pops — expediting with quiet intensity, sleeves rolled, focus unwavering. The staff all called him that like it was sacred. Watching him brought the whole space into focus: the harmony, the rhythm, the unspoken choreography of a team that clearly respects who’s leading them.

By the end of the night, Jason and I didn’t want to leave. And I realized: this is why we came to Portland. Not just to be fed, but to be felt. Terra Mae doesn’t just know what it’s doing — it knows who it’s feeding. And if you’re lucky, that includes you.