First Tastes: Pumpkin Spiced Bread at Tabor Tavern

A truly excellent dessert at Tabor Tavern.

On New Year’s Eve, my household has established a tradition of eating at Tabor Tavern, a gastropub on E Burnside in the North Tabor neighborhood. It’s an extension of our previous tradition of eating at one of our favorite gastropubs in Queens, Sweet Afton. After a meal at Tabor Tavern that featured one of their excellent burgers and fries with an addictive malt vinegar aioli, we got this dessert, Pumpkin Spiced Bread, which is one of the best things I ate in 2021.

It’s two slices of griddled pumpkin bread topped with candied butternut squash and caramel, with brown butter cookie crumb and vanilla ice cream on the side. It was warm, sweet, spiced, and hit a bunch of pleasure points: the almost melt-in-your mouth texture of the bread; the contrast of cold vanilla ice cream and warm bread; the crispy texture of the cookie crumbs; and caramel, one of my top three favorite sweet things.

I’d never encountered caramelized butternut squash before, but in hindsight it makes a lot of sense to give it that treatment. It’s a naturally sweet squash whose sugars lend itself well to caramelization, and was a very good match with all the other flavors going on. Plus it was very pretty and had an almost jewel-tone color going on.

Tabor Tavern offers up solid burgers, sandwiches, and salads, but then there are these menu standouts like this pumpkin bread; their winter salad, which I hope returns to the menu, is also fantastic and I find myself craving it at different points in the year. I also highly recommend their butternut squash soup when it’s available.

The incredible butternut squash soup at Tabor Tavern. I love the seeds that add a bit of crunch.

As things change seasonally on the menu at Tabor Tavern, this pumpkin bread dessert may not be on the menu for long. But if you can catch it, get it! It’s seriously delicious.

Tabor Tavern
5325 E Burnside Street, Portland
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