Winter Waters - a regenerative seafare series

We’re excited to announce the return of the Portland and Oregon Coast dining series, Winter Waters! During the month of February 2024, Winter Waters will once again partner with chefs and tastemakers to celebrate regenerative seafood, with an emphasis on farmed sea vegetables including wakame, kombu, sea lettuce, and dulse. Other seafare highlighted in this series will include locally grown oysters, Oregon purple sea urchin, albacore tuna, and many other sustainably caught and iconic PNW species such as black cod, cold water pink shrimp and dungeness crab.

Winter Waters is a regenerative seafare series that debuted in February 2023, with a month-long initiative that included 15+ chef-driven events across Portland and the Oregon Coast. Additionally, chefs featured menu specials creatively including seaweeds and local seafood. There were seaweed cooking classes, and tours of the Oregon Seaweed farm on the Port of Garibaldi. The initiative raised over $6k for the non-profit partner, Oregon Kelp Alliance, a multi-sector partnership working to protect our wild Oregon kelp forests. Winter Waters 2024, scheduled for February 2024, is in the early planning phases.

The mission of Winter Waters is to raise awareness of farmed sea vegetables as a superfood culinary ingredient, and to improve local Oregon coast food systems. The Pacific Northwest is home to some of the most sustainable and regenerative fisheries yet we ship out most of the seafood we produce and import most of the seafood we eat. There is a disconnect between the people and the process and we’d like to help bridge this gap through education and delicious shared meals. 

You can expect ticketed prix fixe, fine dining events as well as casual a la carte events and menu specials all month. Check out last years activities below for an idea of what to expect this year!

Last year, 24 chefs and restaurants partnered with Winter Waters to bring sea veggies to consumers in restaurants across Portland and coastal communities from Astoria to Newport.

There was a sea veggie cooking class with the Cookshop. Portland chef partnerships included Chef Maylin Chavez of Nacar Oysters (formerly Olympia Oyster Bar), Chef Leather Storrs and Natalia Torral of The Mahonian (Natalia is also co-founder of Shuck Portland, our favorite oyster festival), Chef John Conlin of Tercet, Chef Cameron Dunlap of Morchella, Chef Andre Uribe of Sustainable Meals Oregon, and Freelance Chef Trever Gilbert (formerly of Departure). Waz Wu of Veganizer PDX hosted vegan, gluten-free pop ups with Chef Jewan Manuel of Plant Based Papi and Chefs Ryan Koger and August Winningham of Feral. Both pops ups took place at Mestizo, with the bar run by Nan Chaison. Additionally, there were menu specials from Chef Kyle Christy of Street Disco and other Portland restaurants.

2023 Oregon coast partnerships included the Winter Waters Finale at The Salmonberry and two seated dinners at Nekst, plus menu specials at Buoy Beer, Local Ocean, Bowline Hotel, Buttercup Chowders, and The Schooner.

Winter Waters was created when passionate seaweed advocates Alanna Kieffer of Oregon Seaweed and Rachelle Hacmac of Blue Evolution teamed up with Oregon Coast food systems value chain coordinator Kristen Penner. They decided it was time to bring a seaweed-centric seafood series to the Portland and Oregon Coast area! These three women are working hard to make regenerative seaweed and local seafood a familiar and favorite food in our communities and help everybody source locally. They are foodies, farmers, and fishermen, who want to share the unbelievable work being done in our backyards with you. The Pacific Northwest draws visitors from far and wide and is home to some of the most sustainable and regenerative fisheries, yet 90% of the seafood eaten on the Oregon Coast is not from here. There is a disconnect between the people and the process, and we’d like to help bridge this gap through education and delicious shared meals. The Winter Waters non-profit beneficiary is Oregon Kelp Alliance, a multi-sector partnership working to protect our wild Oregon kelp forests.