Dani Morales may not yet be a household name, but she’s already recognized at the place that matters the most to her—the Portland Farmers Market.
Since becoming the executive chef of downtown’s De Noche in 2023, she's been at the famed Portland State University farmers market bright and early every Saturday. It’s a habit she learned from Comedor Lilia chef Juan Gomez. The pair, both part of the República & Co. restaurant group, track what’s in season and what’s about to be, and check in with favorite vendors.
“Rain, shine, snow, I was there,” Morales says. “I started to build a reputation with farmers: being there early before the market bell went off and building relationships, learning their names. They know your name; you should learn theirs.”
Bringing hyper-local ingredients to Mexican dishes rich with cultural heritage has Morales putting out some of the most exciting food in the city. And she’s about to get a bigger stage: She’s been promoted to executive chef at República, the fine-dining flagship of the República & Co mini-empire.
De Noche will become the new home of Comedor Lilia. Under Morales, República will add an a la carte menu to its longtime tasting menu format, which will also go from 10 courses to seven.
Last month, regulars packed the Park Blocks location of De Noche after the transition was announced. Weekly regulars were there for their fix of Morales’ signature dishes, in particular the plato de birria, a slowly braised beef short rib portion served with bright pickled onions, microgreens, and plenty of savory broth. You soak it all up with the multicolored maiz tortillas that are made in house, served warm and tender.
Morales took fresh snap peas and turned them into a play on esquites, the bright pods served over a black garlic sauce, with chiles and cheese. A raw scallop aguachile’s sauce was a shocking magenta thanks to the addition of strawberries, whose sweetness paired with the shellfish—offset by a chile kick.
De Noche’s greatest hits will still be part of República, Morales promises.
“Being able to do food in both ways will make me happy as well,” she says. “We’ll do more refined things for the tasting menu, more street food for the a la carte. We’ll still do everything with the seasons. I’ll still be going to the farmers market to get everything for the restaurant.”
Morales, 35, grew up as a first-generation daughter of Mexican immigrants: Her father is from Guadalajara, and her mother is from Sinaola. The two met harvesting crops in Baja. Morales grew up near Santa Barbara and got into cooking as an elementary school kid.
At the Boys & Girls Club, "a woman did a cooking class once a week," Dani recalls. "She started showing us random baking skills." This early exposure, combined with the magnetic pull of her older cousin—a working chef and musician—set her on her culinary course. While other kids watched cartoons, Dani devoured episodes of Rachael Ray and Emeril Lagasse. "That's how I decided that's what I wanted to be," she says. "All the food—it brought people together and always in a good way."
She climbed through kitchens in Southern California and Las Vegas, including at Santa Barbara’s hailed Sama Sama Indonesian restaurant, making it to sous chef. Morales and her partner at the time decided that the rent in their hometown was too damn high, and landed on Portland as a more affordable space.
After stints at the former Yonder and Il Solito, Morales joined the República team and worked her way up to her first executive chef role at De Noche. "I technically had never cooked Mexican food before working at Lilia," Morales says. She added that she always wanted to, and saw República as the "only place doing food that looked like where I came from and what I used to eat, but in a more elevated restaurant version."
In the kitchen, Morales expedites dishes by hand, following a seat map that she marks with pen as she sends a mole amarillo with halibut to the corner of the chef’s counter, and a vegetarian sope, whose corn shell is as crisp and flaky as pastry crust, to a window table. A self-confessed sneakerhead, she wears one of her 80-90 pairs of Nikes and Adidas in the kitchen, non-slip soles be damned.
Calling out dishes, Morales is quick with a “please” and “thank you” to staff—her voice is loud, but she’s not yelling. Morales, who is a lesbian, says she strives to make sure her kitchen isn’t like some of those she came up in.
“Being a queer person in a kitchen is difficult,” she says. “I try to make my boundaries very well known. I’m not a butt taps kind of girl, I’m not one of the boys. I give that vibe: Don’t fuck with me. I have a quick mouth, and whatever you say is not going to be as good as what I can give back to you.”
Though she feels like her identity has caused her to be passed up for promotions in the past, Morales says her queerness is celebrated here. That’s reflected in the people who come to eat at De Noche, and it’s largely been through community word-of-mouth, she says.
“The way I celebrate [being gay] is for my space to be a queer-friendly,” she says. “Over time, I became the queer date night spot. There was one night where I said, ‘If you look at this room right now, there’s at least five queer couples in here having dinner right now.’ You celebrate it, knowing you're going to walk into that room and knowing you're not feeling uncomfortable.”
Republica, 100 NW 10th, republicahospitality.com
