417 NW 10th Ave 
Portland, OR 97209 (Map)
Phone: 503-295-9536
Email: timothy@vinoparadiso.com
Website: Vino Paradiso Wine Bar & Bistro
Vino Paradiso Wine Bar & Bistro is downtown Portland’s only bonafide wine bar, located in the Pearl District. It was opened June of 2005, as a warm, inviting, hip, yet casual place for friends to hang out for fabulous food and a wine list that is at once easy to read and eclectic, with choices for the meek as well as the wild. Our goal was, and is, to shake the notion that one must know a lot about wine and/or have a lot of money to enjoy wine at a restaurant.
• Full dinner menu, which changes regularly • Wine, beer and non-alcoholic beverages, lists change regularly • We are a retail wine shop as well. Take 50% off wines on glass list, 30% off bottle list • Premium Wine Flights, change often • Wine Dinners & Classes • Private Parties of 15 to 125 guests, see “Private Parties” page on this site • Art Gallery, new artist every month, see information on this site • Free Live music several nights a week • Sidewalk seating, weather permitting • Free Wi-Fi access, with purchase • We sell gift certificates • Reservations encouraged • Street parking readily available • Visa, Mastercard, Amex, and Discover accepted • Non-smoking, except outdoor seating • Minors allowed until 10 pm • Open Tues. thru Sat. 4pm – 11pm (or so), Sundays 3pm – 9pm • Wheelchair accessible • Free from downtown, on the Streetcar, in “Fairless Square.” Get off at the Glisan Stop.
BIO: Timothy Nishimoto Timothy Nishimoto was born in Florida and grew up in Long Beach, California, the second of three children. He credits his Japanese grandmother with teaching him that food and drink are so much more than nourishment. “From her, even a plate of peanuts was well-presented,” he recalls. Timothy graduated from Cal State Long Beach in 1990 and moved to Portland, Oregon in1991, where he has held a variety of restaurant jobs (Bima, Papa Haydn, Santa Fe) both on the floor and in management. In 1999, he began work as a wine steward for what was then Nature’s Northwest Fresh in Laurelhurst district. At Nature’s (and then at Wild Oats, once the store changed ownership), Timothy created a wine selection that was thorough, approachable and complex. Now that his keen interest in wine was set, Timothy couldn’t shake this notion: a cellar and a setting with a convivial environment that would complement moods and intensify flavors. In fact, for the last ten years Timothy had been hatching a plan to start a wine business of his own. But parallel careers as a wine steward and a vocalist (he started singing with Pink Martini in 1994 and officially joined the band in 2003) kept his spare time to a minimum. When the opportunity arose to acquire Vigne, he leapt at the chance. Thus Vino Paradiso is the realization of a years-long dream. When cornered into naming a “favorite” wine, Timothy will allow that it would probably be a Pinot Noir. Place he’s most enjoyed drinking wine? “In Paris, on the steps of Sacre Coeur,” he says, without missing a beat, “After the opera, Fall 2000.
