Foxtrot Lounge Menu Shoot | Portland Restaurant
There are some clients you'd shoot for free, and Britain Stephens at Foxtrot is one of them. He's one of the loveliest humans in Portland hospitality, and every single thing he touches at his Belmont Street bar and café is soaked in care. The kind of care you can taste in the food, see in the velvet curtains, and feel the second you walk through the front door of that big Queen Anne Victorian. So when he asked me to come photograph their newest menu update, the answer was yes before he finished the sentence.
If you've lived in Portland long enough, you know the building. The historic J.C. Havely House on SE Belmont was for years home to the beloved Pied Cow, a haunted-looking Victorian institution that closed during the pandemic. Britain reopened the space in late 2024 as Foxtrot — a bar, café, restaurant, and venue that pulls from the dining cultures of Spain, France, and Italy without trying to be any one of them. The PSU Vanguard called it "quirky and classy" and described the energy as a "haunted living room, curious and antiquated, all while serving colorful platters and cocktails full of life. Or death." Honestly, that about sums it up. Foxtrot is what happens when someone who genuinely loves vintage objects, good food, and the people of his neighborhood gets to build the bar of his dreams.
For the menu shoot, we set up against one of Britain's gold-stamped patterned tables, and I let the maximalist surface do half the storytelling. Every plate looked like a still life from a 17th-century Dutch painting against that backdrop - gilded, glowing, a little bit theatrical. Which is exactly how the food on this menu feels.
A few standouts I keep thinking about. The tuna crudo is a stunner - paper-thin slices of fish swimming in a bright herby green sauce, scattered with pickled red onion, edible flower petals in marigold yellow and crimson, and microgreens. It's the kind of dish that makes the whole table go quiet for a second when it lands. The gnocchi is comfort food dressed for a night out, served in a warm terracotta vessel over rice with arugula and pickled accents tumbling across the top. And the Aunt Lydia cocktail, a frothy, deep amber pour topped with an orange peel and what looked like a single dark berry breaking through the foam, is one of those drinks that makes you feel like you've been let in on a secret. All three are honestly worth a trip to Belmont on their own.
The rest of the menu is just as thoughtful. Escargot served on a piece of patterned heirloom china, swimming in herb-flecked butter with a fan of toasted baguette. A cheese and charcuterie plate with sharp aged cheddar, crumbly blue, brined olives, pepperoncini, cornichons, and a generous pool of jewel-toned berry jam. Tiny pintxos topped with what looked like a slow-cooked beef ragout under a wild crown of microgreens and pickled radish. Roasted quail over white beans dotted with cherries and marigold petals. Another quail dish, this one against a smear of deep beet purée with an arugula and orange salad. And to close, a slice of basque-style burnt cheesecake with a glossy red-orange sauce pooled around it like something out of a fairytale.
The drinks deserve their own paragraph. Foxtrot's cocktail program leans into Spanish drinking culture, low-proof, vermouth-forward, and built for lingering. The Aunt Lydia I already swooned over above. There's also a hot mulled wine for cooler nights, served in a clear glass mug with a wheel of orange and a cinnamon stick floating on top, that I genuinely had to pull myself away from after photographing it.
What I love most about shooting for places like Foxtrot is that the work doesn't feel like work. When a client puts this much love into every small choice, the patterned china, the velvet seating, the carefully built drink list, the menu that changes with what's good and seasonal — my job is just to honor it. Capture the food and drinks the way Britain and chef Ben Chase intended them to be seen, and let the maximalist soul of the space do the rest.
If you're a restaurant, bar, or hospitality brand looking for someone to photograph your menu, your space, or your story with the same care you put into building it — I'd love to talk. Head over to the contact page and let's make something beautiful together.
And if you haven't been to Foxtrot yet, go. Order the tuna, the gnocchi, and an Aunt Lydia. Tell Britain I sent you.
xo, Leah
