4 • The Southwest Portland Post
FEATURES
February 2015
Liege-style waffles are served sweet or savory at Gigi’s Café in Hillsdale
RESTAURANT REVIEW
By Janet Goetze
The Southwest Portland Post
Here’s a tip for eating Liege-style
waffles: Don’t pour syrup on them. Not
even pure maple syrup.
They are made not from the usual
waffle batter but a thicker, brioche-
style dough with small pearls of sugar
kneaded into it right before baking.
Syrup makes them too sweet unless,
of course, you want that much sweet
flavor, explained Charlene Wesler, co-
owner of Gigi’s, a breakfast and lunch
cafe developed around the waffles
identified with Liege, Belgium.
Gigi’s opened in November at 6320
SW Capitol Highway, in the former
Korkage and Three Square Grill space
in the Hillsdale Town Center.
Gigi’s is the brick-and-mortar dream
of Wesler and partner Mike Susak, who
opened a downtown food cart, Gaufre
Gourmet, featuring Liege waffles with
a variety of toppings in 2010. Gaufre is
French – or Belgian – for waffle.
When the Hillsdale space became
available, the pair scrambled to take
advantage of it, gaining some of their
financing in a Kickstarter campaign.
This was on top of winning a Food
Network competition in early 2014,
when diners preferred their gourmet
waffles over a pressed sandwich, giving
them national attention.
While the basic Liege waffle is sweet,
Wesler and Susak have developed
savory variations. A favorite among
diners at the cart and in Hillsdale is
the “Porklandia,” a cornbread-jalapeno
waffle with pulled barbecue pork and
cabbage apple slaw, Wesler said.
A recent diner, Carolyn Rossi, had one
word for the cornbread waffle: “Killer.”
The jalapeño, she said, “adds a little
kick... That appeals to me. It’s not
overdone.”
Rossi, who lives in the area and
works for a property management
company with a Hillsdale office, asked
for additional cabbage apple slaw. The
original helping got lost in the pulled
pork, she said, and she wanted to taste
more of it.
Susan Pryor, a Northeast resident
meeting a friend at Gigi’s, ordered the
Monte Cristo, which she described as a
combination of sweet and savory.
“It has a very sweet waffle, but a
generous serving of turkey, ham and
cheese,” she said. The meat and cheese
don’t seep into the waffle, she said.
Gigi’s has a dedicated waffle iron
for gluten-free selections, but they are
Charlene Wesler and Mike Susak serve sweet and savory liege-style waffles at Gigi's, a
new cafe in the Hillsdale Shopping Center. (Post photo by Janet Goetze)
lighter Brussels waffles rather than
Liege style.
The milk and honey waffle features
Chevre mousse with house-made
balsamic caramel sauce and toasted
pistachios. Jars of caramel sauce are for
sale at the cash register, for those who
want to take the sweet taste home.
Gigi’s also serves grass-fed beef in
a waffle burger and Italian meatballs
on a Parmesan waffle. The latter is a
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favorite among some cast members of
television’s “Grimm,” who periodically
call on Wesler and Susak to bring dinner
at the end of a day’s shoot in Portland.
Sometimes customers insist they
must have syrup because they are,
after all, eating a waffle. They have
never had one with pearls of sugar
imbedded in the dough, which makes
syrup superfluous, Susak said.
“This is more pastry-like,” he
explained, noting it isn’t like the fluffy
Belgian waffles that Americans know.
“It’s denser, chewier and very buttery.
It’s crispy on the outside.”
The waffle style was created more
than 300 years ago for the Prince of
Liege, Wesler said. She first saw the
waffles on a television program about
a ski resort, where athletes skied up
to huts along the trail to pick up pearl
sugar waffles in their hands.
In Belgium and parts of France, the
Liege waffles are eaten as snacks on the
street, Wesler said.
“We thought it was a good canvas
for what could be developed for a food
cart,” Susak said. Before creating their
own recipe, they visited the half-dozen
restaurants from Seattle to Eugene that
serve Liege-style waffles.
The couple opened the food cart in
2010 after meeting in 2008 in a catering
kitchen, which closed in 2009. They also
decided to complete their degrees at
Portland State University by scheduling
classes around food cart hours.
They have a following among
cart diners, but they planned a “soft
opening” without fanfare in Hillsdale
(Continued on Page 3)
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