A meatboard from Hawkeye Huckleberry, the first Oregon restaurant from celebrity chef Brian Malarkey and his brother, James Malarkey. The pair will expand their reach to Portland with the opening of the Malarkey. | Matt Furman Before he became the wunderkind tasting-menu chef at República, before he began serving hiramasa tostadas and octopus aguachile at his pop-up Metlapíl, Jose Lalo Camarena was a cowboy.  Rather, he was a young charro, a skilled Mexican horse trainer and rancher, from a long line of charros. He would drive with his grandfather to San Fernando Valley horse stables at 3 a.m., muck stalls in the scaly heat, and watch his grandfather break in bucking ponies owned by Hollywood directors. High up on the saddle, they’d trot down LA streets during parades, in their intricately embellished suits and wide-brimmed hats. “There were gang members on my block, and I was trying to fit in with them, but I’m wearing my cowboy boots and my jeans and my sombrero,” he says. “I was like a ghetto cowboy.” “He’s a cowboy, I’m a cowboy. You can’t create that — you can’t teach that culture or understanding.” A few decades earlier and 800 miles north, celebrity chef Brian Malarkey was growing up in Central Oregon, living his own cowboy childhood on a 90-acre cattle farm. Those early years were part of the reason Malarkey, a Food Network regular and seasoned San Diego restaurateur, decided to open a beef-fueled Bend restaurant and bar with his brother, James Malarkey, in 2024. Hawkeye Huckleberry grills steaks from the family ranch over Oregon hardwood next to piles of beef fat fries and bourbon-spiked beans in a space decked out in acoustic guitars and antler chandeliers; today, the Century Drive restaurant is packed with jeans-donning locals most nights, and pulls $8 million in revenue each year.  The family restaurant was enough of a hit that the Malarkeys decided to try again in Oregon’s “big city.” This summer, they plan to open a 250-seat Pearl District steakhouse and seafood restaurant called the Malarkey, an unapologetic spectacle with aesthetic nods to Portland neighborhoods and movies, murals from local street artists, and stripper poles in the bathroom. Camarena will take the reins in the kitchen. “He’s a cowboy, I’m a cowboy,” Malarkey says. “You can’t create that — you can’t teach that culture or understanding.” Most food geeks wouldn’t envision John Wayne when picturing Brian Malarkey. He first appeared on TV as a whirring ball of energy on Season 3 of Top Chef. In the years since, Malarkey has become a familiar face on cooking shows: He’s appeared on Guy’s Grocery Games, Chopped, and Wildcard Kitchen, and hosts Cutthroat Kitchen: Knives Out, the reboot of Alton Brown’s legendary culinary competition. Offscreen, Malarkey has opened 15 successful restaurants over the course of his career, including San Diego’s Animae, home of James Beard Award-nominated  chef Tara Monsod. In other words, he’s a big personality with a keen eye for talent. And he feels confident betting on Camarena.  “Lalo will be a star,” Malarkey says. “There were a ton of talented chefs in the Portland area, but if you look at the upside of Lalo, he’s accomplished so much at 25. And when you meet him in person, he glows.” Camarena is used to being the youngest chef in the room. He started working in restaurants when he was 15, and became the executive chef of James Beard Award-nominated tasting menu restaurant República at 23. At República, Camarena served aguachiles that traced the gastronomic influences of Japan and France across Mexican cuisine, with echoes of tataki and tartare. He plated duck breast over black and white moles imbued with apricots and pistachio, and delicately placed mushroom cloud crackers over pork and amaranth, an allusion to Spanish conquistadors burning Aztec amaranth fields. Last year, he started the pop-up Metlapíl with his wife, Kautia, which blended his passion for Sinaloan mariscos — seafood dishes — with hand-ground masa. Then, Kautia got pregnant, and Camarena needed something consistent, something that wouldn’t have them serving ceviches and tostadas until 2 a.m.  When he spotted the job application for the Malarkey, it seemed like a good fit, though he was a little cautious. After hours of phone calls, Malarkey sent Camarena to the family ranch to get to know the Hawkeye Huckleberry team and his restaurant ethos writ large. The Portland chef drove in the pitch black morning to PB Ranch in Tumalo, where he met Hawkeye Huckleberry chef Carlos Anthony Ochoa, who asked him, “You want to wrangle some cattle with me?”  “I was luckily wearing my boots and my blue jeans,” Camarena says. “Having that be my introduction to that ranch, that was awesome, dude. Let me put down my coffee and hop that fence.” Camarena and Malarkey are still working on the menus of the forthcoming restaurant, but they’ve both pulled inspiration from their grandmothers. Malarkey has passed along his granny’s recipes for chocolate sauce and coleslaw, while Camarena reminisces about his abuela’s feasts of carne asada after long ranch days. The idea is to balance classic steakhouse Americana with some of Camarena’s galaxy brain creativity — yes, you’ll find rib-eyes and Caesars and crabcakes, but also perhaps a bay shrimp toast with the flavors of a shrimp cocktail, or corned beef lengua, or pork terrine with a Mexican flavor profile, paired with Baird Family Orchards peaches. Oysters may come with homemade hot sauces, and in lieu of typical corn grits, Camarena may use nixtamalized masa. And the Pacific Northwest will appear front-and-center, from the family ranch tomahawks to the albacore tuna crudo. “Something I love is that I can bring this really delicate touch that I like to a not-so delicate type of restaurant,” Camarena says. “It’ll be really fun to find that juxtaposition.” The biggest timing hurdle? The newest Camarena should be born right around the same time as the restaurant, in the late summer, which means Malarkey will be in the kitchen during his chef’s paternity leave. But Malarkey is excited to get back behind the burners. “When he has that baby, Carlos and I are going to have the most fun two weeks of our lives,” Malarkey says. “We’re going to take that delicate nature and pour rocket fuel all over it.” ...read more read less