Chef Jack Strong remembers the first time he created a dish.

An Oregon-born member of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, Strong had grown up in Siletz, worked at a fish and chip shop in Newport and attended the culinary arts program at Lane Community College. But it wasn’t until reaching Eugene that Adam’s Place chef Adam Bernstein challenged Strong to “put a dish on the menu that speaks to your culture.”

“At the time, I didn’t know what to put on there,” Strong recalled. “In Siletz, everything I grew up eating was pretty humble. Eventually, I came up with a fusion of my culture and his: frybread — something I grew up eating — and homemade lox all garnished like a lox bagel.”

Two decades later, Strong has built a career weaving Native American ingredients into the French-obsessed world of fine dining, all while learning to tell stories through food. This weekend, those years of experience will come to a head with the Celebration of First Foods Dinner at The Allison Inn & Spa highlighting “the spirit, heritage and flavors of Indigenous communities” in honor of Native American Heritage Month.

“Every time I serve a dish, it’s about telling a story of food, of history and of a people,” Strong said. “When Europeans came here, they were looking for treasure, but the real treasure was the foods that were here. Because the foods of the Americas changed the world. Chiles going to Hungary? Can you believe there were no tomatoes in Italy? Potatoes came from here; imagine Ireland without potatoes.”

From Eugene, Strong was swept up into the world of high-end resort dining, starting in the American Southwest. At the Phoenician in Scottsdale, he learned to cook with chiles, cactus pads and prickly pear fruit — Native ingredients not commonly found in the Northwest. His next stop was Kai, a top-rated restaurant at the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass with a menu focused on “Native American cuisine with global accents.” At Kai, Strong earned a James Beard semifinalist nomination and co-wrote the cookbook “The New Native American Cuisine.”

That experience put Strong at the forefront of a then-nascent movement to expand opportunities for Native chefs, particularly in the world of fine dining. That movement has only recently begun to bear fruit, with the opening of high profile restaurants such as Owamni in Minneapolis, winner of the James Beard Award for America‘s Best New Restaurant in 2022.

If it weren’t for the pandemic, Strong might still be in the Southwest. But COVID-19 hit a few months after taking his “dream job” at the JW Marriott Camelback Inn Resort and Spa in Paradise Valley, Arizona, and instead of cooking, Strong found himself forced to close down the restaurant. By 2021, Strong was ready for a change. He traveled back to Oregon to see the ocean and visit family and friends, with a stop at The Allison to eat with his mentor, Bernstein. A memorable meal soon became a job offer from The Allison. Strong was named Jory Restaurant’s head chef in late 2022.

Now in its second year, the First Foods Dinner has expanded to a two-day event for 2024 with a Friday reception, cultural blessing and multi-course dinner. That meal will featyre dishes from Strong as well as visiting chefs Freddie Bitsoie, the Navajo former executive chef of Mitsitam Native Foods Cafe in the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., and Nephi Craig, White Mountain Apache/Navajo co-founder of The Native American Culinary Association and Café Gozhóó. Wine pairings come from Native winemakers including Oregon’s Greywing Cellars.

Saturday brings an Indigenous Marketplace with 25 Native vendors, cultural performances, small bites and cooking demos from Bitsoie, Craig, Strong and Alexa Numkena-Anderson of Portland’s Javelina.

For the dinner, Strong is planning an amuse of tomato water sorbet using produce from The Allison’s own 1.5 acre garden and a duo of venison chop and sausage with a purple potato puree, smoked sweet potato espuma, pickled mushrooms and a huckleberry jus. Bistoie is working on a pinon-crusted salmon dish with roasted corn, juniper-agave glaze, gold beets and seaweed. And Craig will serve a pita-like Western Apache racket bread with braised beef tongue and green chiles, among other dishes.

A portion of the dinner’s proceeds will go to the Northwest Native Chamber, an organization dedicated to transforming the economic landscape for Native Americans in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Additionally, Strong and Bitsoie have collaborated on a Southwest-meets-Northwest dish that will run on the menu at Jory, The Allison Inn’s restaurant, through the end of November, with some funds going to a K-12 culinary program in Siletz.

“It’s about supporting tribal economies, tribal fishermen, tribal foragers,” Strong said. “And it’s going to be a showcase for the 25+ vendors, small businesses, pop-ups like Javelina. I’m hoping this provides a positive and fun platform for people who wouldn’t have it without this focus.”

The Celebration of First Foods Dinner runs from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 1, at The Jory restaurant at The Allison Inn & Spa, 2525 Allison Lane, Newberg. Tickets for the multi-course dinner are $195, including wine. From 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 2. The Allison will host an Indigenous Marketplace featuring 25 vendors, cultural performances, cooking demos, small bites and wine. Tickets for that event cost $65.

— Michael Russell; [email protected]

Subscribe to The Best Thing I Ate This Week newsletter

Each week, restaurant critic Michael Russell takes Oregonian/OregonLive subscribers along on his culinary explorations. Not a subscriber? You can receive a few weeks of The Best Thing I Ate This Week newsletter as a free trial. Sign up here.