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These FIDO Friendly Hotels are The Bees Knees

Provenance Hotels is proud to announce a partnership with Bee Local that will bring local artisan honey, a uniquely Portland culinary experience, to guests of the company’s three properties in the city – Hotel Lucia, Hotel deluxe and Sentinel – and help ensure its sustainability for years to come.

This month, the hyper-local Portland honey producer will install beehives on the roofs of Hotel Lucia, Hotel deLuxe and Sentinel and make its honey available in honor bars at all three downtown hotels. When the hotel hives are harvested, the honey they produce will be featured on the menus at Imperial at Hotel Lucia and the Driftwood Room and Gracie’s at Hotel deLuxe.

Bee Local has been featured in culinary and cocktail creations at James Beard Award-winning Chef Vitaly Paley’s Imperial and Portland Penny Diner since the restaurants opened at Hotel Lucia in fall 2012 and he initiated the collaboration between restaurant, hotel and honey maker. Putting the beehives on the roof was a longtime dream for Paley, who is famed as an instigator of creative collaboration in the Portland culinary scene, and a natural match for Provenance Hotels, a company known for creative partnerships with producers like Portland’s Salt & Straw ice cream and Smith Teamaker that highlight local artisans and bring their products to hotel guests.

“We are so pleased Vitaly brought us together with Bee Local Honey,” said Bashar Wali, President of Provenance Hotels. “We are passionate about supporting local companies and offering visitors authentic, unique experiences. Nothing could exemplify that better than knowing some of the honey our guests enjoy at our hotels was made on site.”

In addition to being local, the hives at Hotel Lucia, Hotel deluxe and Sentinel are profoundly sustainable. There has been a dramatic drop in the honeybee population in the United State in the past six years, with almost 10 million hives wiped because of colony collapse syndrome. The ailment is caused by risk factors common to large beekeeping operations, so fostering small colonies of urban bees, like those that Bee Local manages, aids in the recovery of the overall bee population.

“Commercially farmed bees typically pollinate a field of just one crop, and the honey is a byproduct. A diverse urban foraging diet is beneficial for bees and results in healthier hives and honey with nuanced flavors that reflect the ecology of the local area,” explained Damian Magista, Bee Local’s founder.

“The bees that live at the hotels will only visit plants within a small radius of the hive, so when you taste the honey, you will truly be getting a taste of the neighborhood,” Chef Paley added.

At Imperial, Bee Local is prominently featured in the ever-popular fried rabbit dish and Harlequin cocktail. In celebration of the bees’ arrival at Hotel Lucia, Chef Paley will also make a special honey-inspired four course menu available April 25-27, 2014. Bee Local Honey is also highlighted on the new spring menu in the Local Honey cocktail at Hotel deLuxe’s Driftwood Room.

For hotel guests who want to take the Bee Local experience home, it will also be available for in small, airline-friendly jars in the honor bars at Hotel Lucia, Hotel deluxe and Sentinel for $6. Honey lovers can also buy larger jars in Paley’s Portland Penny Diner at Hotel Lucia.

 

About Provenance Hotels
Provenance Hotels are award-winning urban boutique hotels with a distinct and deeply integrated art story. They include Hotel deLuxe, Hotel Lucia and Sentinel in Portland, Ore., Hotel Max in Seattle, Wash., Hotel Murano in Tacoma, Wash., and Hotel Preston in Nashville, Tenn.

About Bee Local
Bee Local was founded by Damian Magista in 2011. Since then, the business has grown to include 30 urban hives, including several on top of New Seasons locations and one at Cameron Winery. Bee Local opened its brick and mortar location at 1810 SE 10th Ave., Suite C in August of 2013. Magista and Bee Local have appeared on Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern and will be featured in the May 2014 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. Bee Local will continue to expand in 2014 with additional apiaries and an extensive web store selling unique honeys from across the globe.

About Imperial
Imperial is located in the historic Hotel Lucia in Downtown Portland, showcasing chef-owner Vitaly Paley’s renowned cooking, which helped him earn Portland Monthly’s 2012 Chef of the Year and a 2012 Empire Builder Award by Food & Wine. Chef Paley also received the 2005 James Beard Foundation Best Chef Pacific Northwest award, was nominated as a 2012 and 2013 James Beard Foundation Semifinalist for Outstanding Chef, and was a recent victor on Food Network’s popular series Iron Chef America where he was paired with Imperial Executive Chef Ben Bettinger. Paley, considered the Dean of Portland Chefs for many years, rediscovers Pacific Northwest culinary pathways and follows the footsteps of Oregon’s own James Beard. At Imperial, Chef Paley explores menu ideas that have historic significance and uses cooking methods and ingredients from Oregon’s diverse bounty. 

 

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