Ocotillo offers plenty of excellent reasons to get up and eat brunch

Buttermilk-Masa short stack pancakes with pineapple syrup. Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald Asked to describe the color scheme inside his West End restaurant Ocotillo, co-owner Pliny Reynolds pauses and chuckles. “I don’t know,” he says.

“Maybe desert sunset.” It’s a fitting summation of the shades of orange featured on the walls, booths and banquettes throughout Ocotillo, named after a thorny succulent plant native to the Southwestern United States and northern Mexican desert (and distantly related to the blueberry bush). But it may be more apt to call it desert sunrise.



While Ocotillo made itself an all-day eatery by adding dinner service in November, Reynolds and his wife, Melanie, launched it last spring as a brunch-focused restaurant, and some brunch dishes appear on the dinner menu as well. The Reynolds also own Terlingua, East Bayside’s Texas- and Mexican-influenced barbecue joint, which offered a popular brunch in the pre-pandemic years. But when the restaurant moved down Washington Avenue to a larger location in 2020 — feeding considerably bigger crowds — it wasn’t feasible anymore for the staff to prep and execute a separate Sunday brunch menu.

So after The Danforth, an upscale restaurant and craft cocktail bar, closed in the fall of 2023, the Reynolds seized a chance to revive and expand their brunch program. They loved the neighborhood setting of the Danforth Street venue, and remodeling wasn’t a heavy lift: They brightened up the darkly colored, low-lit interior with sunny paint, seven skylights and a more transparent roof for the back patio, lending the space a casual, brunchy vibe. A new roof lightens up Ocotillo’s outdoor patio dining area.

Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald Naturally, they carried over some popular Terlingua brunch items to the new menu, like Smoked Haddock Benedict (half $15, whole $22), where panko-coated fish cakes stand in for English muffins and Canadian bacon (the fish cakes are also offered on the dinner menu). Light smoke accents local haddock without overwhelming its mild sweetness, though the star of the dish may actually be the lush, lemony hollandaise spiked with Fresno chile hot sauce. The same house hollandaise also graces the Terlingua Brisket Hash ($20), another holdover brunch item I raved about some months back.

Like its sister restaurant, Ocotillo puts out some of the best smoked brisket I’ve had outside the Lone Star State. But some Ocotillo originals are even more rave-worthy. The New York Times called out the superb Mushroom Taco ($9) as one of the 26 best dishes they’d eaten anywhere in the country last year, and it’s worth the hype — without the benefit of any meat at all.

Even avowed carnivores shouldn’t miss the Mushroom Taco with refried beans, scrambled egg, crispy potato, cilantro and salsa macha, shown with house-made Fresno hot sauce on the side. Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald A former vegetarian, Chef Ali-Marie Zoni says restaurants too often treat vegetarian dishes as an “afterthought.” By contrast, the Mushroom Taco and its smartly considered components offer a masterclass in how to make a hearty, supremely satisfying plant-based dish.

The flour tortilla is layered with umami-rich ingredients — creamy refried beans, scrambled eggs and a meaty mix of slow-roasted local shiitake, shimeji, oyster and king trumpet mushrooms — along with crispy potato bits for a little crunch. The garlicky salsa macha is what makes this taco a total stunner, though. The intensely savory, oil-based blend of dried chiles, toasted peanuts, almonds and sesame seeds is an addictively compelling umami bomb all on its own, like a Mexican version of chili crisp.

“I spent a long time before we opened Ocotillo trying to get that one dialed in,” Zoni said of the macha. I’d say she’s tuned it pitch-perfect. The festive, nonalcoholic Cactus Blossom with fresh orange juice, vanilla, hibiscus and tonic water.

Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald The Smoked Pork Shoulder Taco ($9) balances rich, fat-basted carnitas with zingy salsa verde, briny cotija from Freeport’s Winter Hill Farm and pops of sweetness from charred corn. It also plays well with a Verdita-rita ($14), a barbecue-friendly bar concoction that pairs verdita — a blend of cilantro, mint, pineapple juice and lime that’s traditionally served as a tequila shot chaser — with smoky mezcal. The menu’s coffee-based cocktails include the Lasso ($12).

It’s essentially a White Russian comfortably resettled in Veracruz: Kahlúa, dark rum and nitro cold brew coffee topped with a fragrant floater of cinnamon- and nutmeg-laced horchata. For a boozeless sipper, try a hurricane glassful of the scarlet-hued Cactus Blossom ($6), a wonderfully beachy, balanced mix of freshly squeezed orange juice, cranberry-tart hibiscus and a little vanilla, with a splash of tonic for some bitter quinine bite. Hospitality at Ocotillo is warm and bright as the space itself, relaxed yet prompt.

Our server offered my friend and me insightful drink recommendations and helped us break up our large order into a few courses. Buttermilk-Masa Pancakes ($14) showcase Zoni’s knack for gluten-free cooking, a skill she honed earlier in her career at Bam Bam Bakery in Falmouth. Her fresh masa-enriched batter yields lofty, light and tender flapjacks with their edges caramelized crisply like an end piece of cornbread.

The dish comes with a loose caramel of pineapple juice, brown sugar and butter, tinged with maple and bearing small chunks of fresh pineapple. The sweet, lightly tart topper works well with the corn cakes, though I would have liked just a touch more body to the sauce. Likewise, the espresso dulce de leche sauce has lovely caramel latte-like flavor, but was too thin and dribbly to cling to the crunchy-tender housemade churros ($10) it’s paired with.

Another churro sauce, a jammy blueberry compote seasoned with guajillo chile, was just right for dipping. Bar manager Jenny Nelson pours a margarita into a salt-rimmed glass at Ocotillo. Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald Huevos Ocotillo ($16), a twist on Huevos Divorciados, reunites the two over-easy eggs atop a layered stack of griddled tortillas and refried beans, all set over half-moons of red and green salsas.

Ocotillo doesn’t make its corn or flour tortillas in-house. Zoni said she hopes they’ll eventually be able to dedicate the time and staff to do so. I do, too — fresh-pressed tortillas are a surefire way to take these dishes to the next level.

The tortillas weren’t my issue with the Huevos Ocotillo, though (and they didn’t keep me from loving the tacos, either). Tomatillos and roasted poblanos give the dish’s green salsa vibrant tang and mellow warmth. But while I hoped for complex earthy, toasty and fruity flavors from the dried chiles in the red salsa, I found it nearly as tomato-forward as pizza sauce.

These are minor gripes, though, and they’re more than made up for by knockouts like the Birria Grilled Cheese with red chile broth ($19, also on the dinner menu), a dish that couldn’t be more comforting if it came with a serape on the side. It’s a riff on Tijuana-style quesabirria tacos, featuring succulent barbacoa-style braised brisket, American cheese and soft Mexican-style cheddar, a cheese blend with a little pull and plenty of gooeyness. Instead of corn tortillas, Ocotillo uses butter-grilled sourdough bread from their James Beard Award-winning next-door neighbor, ZUbakery.

Dunk a corner of the cracklingly crisp sandwich into the rich and beefy dipping consommé — enhanced with pureed onion and garlic — and it evokes the classic childhood combo of grilled cheese and tomato soup, or the more adult pleasure of sopping up mussels broth with crusty baguette. The restaurant marked its one-year anniversary in April. The last two well-regarded restaurants at this corner of Danforth and Clark, Little Giant and The Danforth, didn’t prove to have much staying power.

Here’s hoping that for the Ocotillo era, it’s still only the dawn. Birria Grilled Cheese, on crunchy ZUbakery sourdough with red chile dipping broth and a demi salad with charred corn-Meyer lemon vinaigrette. Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald RATING: **** WHERE: 211 Danforth St.

, Portland. 207-203-4611. ocotillo.

me SERVING: 9 a.m. to 9 p.

m. Monday, Thursday, Friday; 8 a.m.

to 9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday PRICE RANGE: $9 to $22 NOISE LEVEL: Medium-high in the dining room when mostly full VEGETARIAN: Some dishes GLUTEN-FREE: Some dishes RESERVATIONS: Yes BAR: Yes WHEELCHAIR ACCESS: Yes BOTTOM LINE: Terlingua owners Pliny and Melanie Reynolds opened brunch-focused Ocotillo in the West End last April, taking over the space that previously hosted the plush cocktail lounge and restaurant The Danforth.

A sunny paint job and new skylights made the interior better suited for daytime dining. The warmth and brightness pervade the service staff and the flavors as well. You need to try the Mushroom Taco and its addictive salsa macha; it’s as savory and satisfying a vegetarian dish as you’ll find anywhere.

Birria Grilled Cheese with red chile broth featuring ZUbakery’s sourdough bread is a full-body hug of a dish, while Buttermilk-Masa Pancakes demonstrate Chef Ali-Marie Zoni’s deftness with gluten-free cooking. You can’t go wrong with dishes that feature the house lemon-Fresno hollandaise like Smoked Haddock Benedict or Terlingua Brisket Hash (which has the added bonus of blue-ribbon smoked brisket), though the red salsa in the Huevos Ocotillos needed more chile oomph. Crunchy, lightly sweet, hot churros are the perfect shareable treat, particularly with blueberry-guajillo sauce.

The nicely flavored espresso dulce de leche was a little too drippy to stick to the churro, but if you dunk your donuts in coffee, this might be just the thing for you. The extensive brunchtime bar program includes a smoky, herby Verdita-rita (try it with the Pork Taco) and boozy coffee beverages like the Lasso, a south-of-the-border riff on a White Russian. The festive Cactus Blossom, flavored with hibiscus, vanilla and quinine, tastes so complete you’ll forget it’s a mocktail.

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