When Chef Isaiah Martinez opened Yardy Rum Bar, a West Indian–inspired restaurant in early 2024, his intention was simple — to create flavorful Caribbean food made with fresh Northwest ingredients, as well as offer the tastiest rum cocktails in town. A lofty intention in itself, but he also wanted to take it one step further.
“My goal is to celebrate Black food and history,” says the 30-something Martinez, who was born in New York and has roots in Puerto Rico and Grenada. “I have an obsession. I want to have people fall in love with Caribbean culture.”
And people are loving Martinez’s food enough that he made the list for the James Beard Award semifinalists, announced January 22, for Best Chef Northwest. Martinez’s signature dishes include doubles, which Martinez describes as “the Caribbean version of a hot dog,” as well as his famous pan-fried chicken and jerk chicken. Doubles are a vibrant concoction of curried chickpeas on turmeric flatbread served with cilantro, mango, and pepper chutney. He says his dishes are a direct representation of his heritage.
Martinez’s culinary journey began at age 14 when he enrolled in vocational cooking classes while in high school. Filled with youthful exuberance and an insatiable creative spark, he went on to complete culinary school in San Francisco, where he learned the ins and outs of fine dining, particularly involving French and Italian regional cuisine.
He worked in several acclaimed San Francisco Bay Area restaurants, including Farmer Brown, where he met Sarah Kirnon, a well-known West Indian chef and food activist who encouraged Martinez to use his cooking talents to reflect his unique cultural history. “She’s a good woman; she was a mentor to me,” he says. He also worked at an upscale Oakland Italian eatery called A16, where he encountered another mentor, Rocky Maselli, who would go on to become a chef at Marché and later the owner of Osteria DOP in Eugene. “Rocky called me and asked me to move out here and work with him — that was in 2018,” recalls Martinez.
A lot has happened since then. It was while cheffing at Marché that Martinez became acquainted with bar manager Nick Cifuni. Their personalities clicked, so much so that they decided to go into business together, first operating pop-ups and subsequently launching Yardy as a food cart before opening their physical storefront at 837 Lincoln Street (the former location of The Vintage restaurant).
“I develop the food and Nick does the drinks,” says Martinez. “Our menu is seasonal. We change it about every three weeks, but we always keep our signature dishes.”
As for the bar menu, customer favorites range from piña coladas to classic daiquiris to MamaJuana Old Fashioneds, along with beer, wine, and various nonalcoholic beverages.
“All of our drinks are tied up in the history and culture of the Caribbean traditions,” says Cifunii. “We’re complementing the cuisine that honors these traditions.”
Martinez agrees. “Eugene is a cool place because there’s a lot of great stuff that grows here, and we’re using a lot of local ingredients to make traditional Caribbean food,” he adds. “We’re doing our best to honor these cultural traditions while cooking with Northwest ingredients.”
Martinez says he loves being able to “make people like food that they didn’t think they’d like.” Take beets, for example. Yardy offers jerked beet salad, which features smoked beets, persimmon, apple, hazelnuts, jerk vinaigrette, and coconut yogurt. “The smoked beets are rich, but also very light,” he says. “That’s our most popular salad.”
Another gastronomical surprise features quince, the often-forgotten member of the pome family, which includes apples and pears. Yellow in color and covered with fuzz, quince needs to be cooked thoroughly before eating. Yardy serves it with donuts and whipped cream.
“It’s this weird fruit that doesn’t look edible, but it has a tart, floral taste and it’s sweet,” Martinez says. “It’s simple and people like it.”
The Yardy chef says there is nothing more rewarding than preparing food that is both delicious and reflective of his Caribbean heritage. “Like I said, I have an obsession with focusing on culture.”
Yardy Rum Bar offers downstairs, upstairs, and outdoor dining, and features gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian, pescetarian, and spicy dishes. It is open from 5 to 9pm, Wednesday through Sunday.
Yardy Rum Bar
837 Lincoln Street
458/240-7564
yardyrumbar.com
