Derby: Inspired Comfort Food, Unique Setting
Located inside a Sodo club for car lovers, the restaurant Derby offers a great bar scene and excellent food.
The food isn’t served on the hood of a Ferrari, but you’d be excused for remembering it that way. The Shop, a club for gearheads, houses the upscale comfort food restaurant Derby. The spacious, sleek dining area has broad windows opening onto rows and rows of exquisite vehicles gleaming in the clean, well-lit garage. While that’s unique, it’s hardly the best reason to visit Derby. Come for the food (and leave with Lamborghini dreams).
Executive Chef Nick Taseris serves the kind of food your mother might have made if she was a professionally-trained chef that sourced high-quality meats and produce from the Pacific Northwest. Take, for example, their Bad-Ass BLT. It’s served on lightly toasted Macrina sourdough, with thick slices of good tomato, just-ripe avocado, lettuce—and the namesake Bad-Ass Bacon. Not only is this probably not how your mother referred to her bacon, but it’s also nothing like the bacon most of us grew up eating. Derby gets the meat cut in quarter-pound strips from a ranch in Pendleton, Oregon. Nick and his crew coat it in a house-made cayenne-maple glaze, slow-roast it, drizzle it with maple syrup and sprinkle it with Maldon salt. It’s thick, rich, and bursting with salty-sweet flavor. And, yes, you can order a side of the bacon all day off the happy hour menu.
Raised in Texas, Nick brings some of that Lone Star smokehouse know-how to the cuisine. The beef brisket, pastrami, and corned beef are smoked in-house, low and slow, and the tender meat is served in generous portions. You won’t go wrong with the Pastrami Reuben on Macrina’s rye bread, or the Brisket Sandwich served with bbq sauce.
And as with any pub-style fare worth racing for, the burger better be good enough to land pole position. Derby’s is a winner. A Macrina Brioche Bun, topped with sesame seeds, is slathered in Derby sauce (horseradish-infused aioli) and holds a hefty patty topped with American cheese, red onion marmalade, house-made pickles and a thick slice of good tomato. The medium-cut fries are crisp with a light, fluffy interior. You won’t leave hungry.
For those inclined to lighter fare, the Cobb, Chicken Caeser, and Steak salads do not disappoint. The dinner menu builds on the lunch menu to offer a few hearty entrees, including a pasta, crab cakes, and a smoked meatloaf. For those with a Maserati metabolism, Derby’s poutine has a Texas inflection with their house-smoked brisket and red-eye gravy. Order one to share. Or if you’re in that YOLO state of mind—indulge. You can always retire to the heavy leather sofas and chairs in Derby’s lounge for an after-dinner bourbon and another lingering gaze at the two and four-wheeled beauties preening in the garage.
Lunch Mon–Fri 11 a.m.–3 p.m.
Dinner Wed–Sat 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. | Sun–Tues 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Brunch Sat, Sun 10 a.m.–3 p.m.
Happy Hour Menu Daily 3 p.m.– 6 p.m.