Oregon getaway: Shakespeare and foodie adventures await in Ashland

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival may have drawn us to Ashland but the charms of the city -- and its amazing restaurants -- proved a powerful draw. Here's where to go, what to see and where to eat.

It was Shakespeare that brought us to Ashland, home of Oregon’s famous theater festival. But as we hiked through the city’s gorgeous Lithia Park on a recent June morning, one question kept resurfacing.

No, not “To be or not to be?” We were seeing “Macbeth” later, not “Hamlet,” and anyway, this query had higher stakes than any royal monologue. How many days in a row could we order the same outrageous raclette grilled cheese at Skout Taphouse and Provisions, just across from the park, before someone, you know, said something?

With its melty Alpine cheese, thick rashers of bacon and lingonberry jam — truffle fries on the side — the Ultra Meltathon ($15) is enough to make anyone mangle a monologue and start saying that all the world’s a sandwich or music be the love of food.

The Bard first cast his enchanting spell over this city in 1935, when thespians gathered at the local Chautauqua in Lithia Park to stage “Twelfth Night.” But Lithia Park and the profusion of charming restaurants nearby spin a magic of their own, one with ties to the theater company that dominates not only the city’s economy but its very vibrancy. All those factors have inspired more than menu puns — yes, Midwinter Night’s Dram, we’re looking at you. They’ve also spun off a literary subgenre that includes 20 cozy, modern-day murder mysteries set in the Shakespeare theaters, the eateries, the hotels and this gorgeous park. (More on the books in a sec.)

Lithia Park was designed by landscape architect John McLaren, of Golden Gate Park fame. Today, it invites locals and visitors to begin their woodland wanderings just steps from the festival’s open-air Elizabethan theater and the city plaza. McLaren is not the park’s only tie to the Bay Area either. The park’s historic Butler-Perozzi Fountain was originally created for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition in San Francisco.

Here, trails wind up the canyon and into the woods. Ashland Creek tumbles by in all its splashy glory. There are rolling lawns and woodsy glades for picnickers, a play structure for tots, and pickleball courts, where the thwock of wiffleballs wafts through the air. A new Ashland Japanese Garden — complete with koi pond, waterfall, and sand and stone garden — opened in 2022. And on the main, paved trail near the duck pond, you’ll find cellist Daniel Perry beguiling passersby most mornings. It’s idyllic.

The park’s name, by the way, is a nod to Ashland’s mineral springs, which contain lithia salts. For the last century, anyone who was spa-curious – or had no sense of smell – could sample the, er, fragrant water as it burbled from the bubblers in the plaza drinking fountain. Oregon’s water authority closed the fountain last winter over concerns about other, less salubrious minerals in the water – barium and boron among them — although the city has argued that the bubblers are not a “public drinking fountain” in the conventional sense. The water’s sulfurous smell prevents anyone from actually chugging the stuff.

Historical appeal aside, who would want to drink that stuff when the alternatives include hoppy Oregon IPAs and pinot noir? You’ll find those beverages – along with nine types of Moscow Mules, a Best Damn Old-Fashioned and the aforesaid Midwinter Night’s Dram – at the venerable Oberon’s, a Shakespearean restaurant and whiskey bar on the plaza. Its Elizabethan decor conjures up Puckish whimsy with its twinkle-lit trees and wood-paneled booths, and a menu that ranges from giant roasted turkey legs to savory pies, sausages and flatbreads.

If you were hoping to disentangle real life from the imaginary, you’ve come to the wrong place. This isn’t just Shakespeare central, it’s also the setting for Ellie Alexander’s cozy, best-selling “Bakeshop Mystery” series. If you’re a fan (raises hand), Oberon’s is the inspiration for Puck’s, where Torte pastry chef (and amateur sleuth) Juliette “Jules” Capshaw hangs out with the fictional director of the very real Oregon Shakespeare Festival company.

So yes, we’re here for the Shakespeare — a heart-stoppingly powerful production of “Macbeth” we’re still talking about and an utterly delightful “Much Ado About Nothing” — but we’re also here for Jules and her foodie finds. And Alexander, who lives in Sunnyvale now, understands our obsession with Skout’s Ultra Meltathon grilled cheese. She loves their gigantic Go Big Pretzel, too, served with beer cheese sauce, mustard custard, house kraut and pimento cheese.

The Oregon-born Alexander only moved to Ashland after the book series took off, but her childhood summers had included forays to the city’s famous Elizabethan theater — her dad was a high school English teacher in the Portland area — and she certainly knew the area. So when her agent approached her about writing a mystery series, “I just knew,” she says.

“One of the things about cozy mysteries in general is that quintessential village vibe. There’s such an open, generous sense of community that reverberates through Ashland, and it’s been one of the themes through the series,” she says. “I love that that’s real. There’s nothing fictional about that piece.”

Alexander was still living in Ashland in 2021, when Tom and Lisa Beam opened the casual Skout Taphouse just across from the park. Giant roll-up doors and picnic tables, camping lanterns and a vintage camper bring the outdoorsy vibe indoors, while bright umbrella-shaded tables dot the expansive, creekside patio.

Just around the corner, you’ll find Jamie North’s Mix Bakeshop — the inspiration for Jules’ fictional Torte bakeshop — where you can enjoy a Stumptown Coffee latte with your flaky almond croissant ($5.25) or pick up sandwiches for a picnic at the park. Jules also hangs out with the Larks chef at the 1920s-era Ashland Springs Hotel, our home base for the week. Larks’ real-life chef, by the way, is Walnut Creek-native Franco Console, and everything on that menu is heavenly, especially the Warm Butter Cake with Pear Compote and Cereal Milk Ice Cream ($13).

We’re betting Jules would love Cocorico, too. Italian-inspired cuisine meets Pacific Northwest ingredients at Nat and Grace Borsi’s 2-year-old restaurant. Think burrata ($13) with baby carrots and snap peas, a Spring Campanelle ($22) with tomato confit, mizuna and grilled zucchini, and a Chickpea Tagine ($23) with rose harissa, dried blueberry and asparagus. It’s elevated but laidback all at once, with plenty to delight vegetarians, as well as omnivores.

Can we talk about the corpses, though? It’s true that the fictional Jules stumbles on them everywhere — in the park, at the theater, on snowy Mount Ashland and in a museum on the Southern Oregon University campus. Several locations were even suggested by Alexander’s Ashland neighbors, including “sweet little retirees with a basket of banana bread” who popped up on her porch to say, “So I was thinking about it, and a good place to kill someone would be …”

The only dead bodies we saw were onstage, thank heavens. And we know whodunnit — Macbeth and his wife. But those eerie witches just slayed.

If You Go

Lithia Park: Enter this public park, which is open daily, at 59 Winburn Way in Ashland. The Japanese Garden is open from 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. https://ashlandparksfoundation.org/

Skout Taproom: Open from 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday-Thursday and until 9 p.m. Friday-Saturday at 21 Winburn Way; www.skoutashland.com.

Oberon’s: Open from 4 p.m. until midnight Sunday-Thursday and 1 a.m. Friday-Saturday at  45 N. Main St.; www.oberonsashland.com.

Mix Bakeshop: Open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday-Thursday and 8:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday at 57 N. Main St.; www.mixashland.com.

Cocorico: Open from 5 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday at 15 N. First St.; https://cocoricorestaurant.com/.

Ashland Springs Hotel: Rooms start at $197, including continental breakast. 212 E. Main St.; www.ashlandspringshotel.com The hotel’s Larks restaurant is open from 5 to 8 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday and until 8:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday; https://larksashland.com/.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Performances of “Macbeth,” “Much Ado About Nothing,” “Coriolanus” and several otehr plays run through mid-October. Prices vary by play, but tickets for “Much Ado” start at $35. Find details at  https://www.osfashland.org.