Little Bird Bistro, the downtown sister restaurant to Le Pigeon and The Oregonian’s 2012 Restaurant of the Year, will close later this month, owners Andy Fortgang and Gabriel Rucker will announce in a newsletter later today.

The restaurant, which opened on the old Sixth Avenue bus mall in 2010, signaled both a potential return for downtown dining -- one born out by Portland’s ongoing hotel restaurant boom -- and a new sense of maturity for the city’s scrappy, celebrated food scene.

It was, at first, a perch for Rucker’s former Le Pigeon deputy, chef Erik Van Kley, who tweaked a traditional bistro menu format of oysters, charcuterie and cassoulet with his own twists, including a chicken-fried trout that remains on the menu today. (Van Kley now runs the kitchen at the Pearl District’s Arden.)

But the two-story dining room’s DNA was all Fortgang, the Le Pigeon general manager who honed his trade under chef Tom Colicchio at New York’s Gramercy Tavern. Service was typically refined yet relaxed, with a fun wine list and good cocktails. The walls were painted a cool shade of Robin’s Egg blue. Until it closes on Oct. 27, the copper-topped bar will remain one of the best places in town to grab a late-night drink or snack and watch the MAX trains rumble past.

After Van Kley left in 2015, Rucker took a more hands-on approach with the menu, pumping the charcuterie program up to new heights while adding playful faux French dishes like a fried chicken coq au vin and a double brie burger. The restaurant cycled through a handful of chefs de cuisine over the past four years, most notably Marcelle Crooks, who left at the end of 2018. But I’m not sure it ever rediscovered its identity separate from Le Pigeon. This year, as its new sibling Canard rose to take the top spot on our annual guide to Portland’s 40 best restaurants, Little Bird quietly fell off the list.

Visit Little Bird now through Sunday, Oct. 27 at 215 S.W. 6th Ave., 503-688-5952, littlebirdbistro.com

-- Michael Russell

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