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These days, rising-star chefs and the foodies who adore them are flocking to Portland. In this playground of sustainability and creativity, many of the city's hottest restaurants change menus weekly—sometimes even daily—depending upon the ingredients they have delivered to their door that morning from local farms. The combination of fertile soils, temperate weather, and nearby waters contributes to a year-round bountiful harvest (be it lettuces or hazelnuts, mushrooms or salmon) that is within any chef's reach.
And these chefs are not shy about putting new twists on old favorites. Restaurants like Le Pigeon, Beast, Ox, Ned Ludd, Natural Selection, and Aviary have all taken culinary risks by presenting imaginatively executed, often globally inspired fare while utilizing sustainable ingredients. There’s a strong willingness in and around Portland for chefs to explore their creative boundaries.
Menus frequently extend across nations and continents. First-time visitors to Portland always seem to be impressed by the culinary scene’s international diversity, especially when it comes to Asian and Mediterranean fare, but you’ll also find outstanding examples of Peruvian, Russian, regional Mexican, and dozens of other ethnic restaurants. Of course, seafood is prevalent, with chefs regularly taking advantage of the availability of fresh salmon, albacore, halibut, crab, oysters, and mussels from the rivers and the Pacific Ocean.
Most of the city's longtime favorites are concentrated in Nob Hill, the Pearl District, and downtown. But many of the city’s most exciting food scenes are on the East Side, along Alberta Street, Mississippi Avenue, Williams Avenue, Fremont Street, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Burnside Street, 28th Avenue, Belmont Street, Hawthorne Boulevard, and Division Street, and tucked away in many neighborhoods in between. Serious food enthusiasts will definitely want to make some trips to some of these vibrant, if out-of-the-way neighborhoods.
Bar and restaurant culture greatly overlap in Portland, and many eateries around the city stand out as much because of their carefully curated beverage programs as for their food. Expect to find wine, craft beer, and cocktail lists that rely heavily on Northwest products, and also note that many of the top cocktail lounges, brewpubs, and wine bars we included in our Nightlife and Performing Arts chapter also serve excellent tapas and bar snacks.
Described by baker-owner Kristen Murray as a "modern pastry luncheonette," this dainty West End café has just a handful of wooden booth and counter seats and a minimalist-inspired white-on-white aesthetic. The menu features exquisite French–Scandinavian pastries, cakes, and sandwiches, as well as a full gamut of drinks, including wine (interesting flights are offered), beer, cocktails, teas, and coffee.
Beloved chef and cookbook author Lisa Schroeder dedicates her home-style, made-with-love approach to food to the comforting foods prepared by mothers everywhere. Clearly the theme resonates, as evidenced by the long waits on weekends, and even some weekday mornings for breakfast, which is arguably the best time of the day to sample Schroeder's hearty cooking; try the wild salmon hash with leeks or the French toast with a crunchy cornflake crust. Reservations are recommended on weekends.
This narrow, bi-level space with exposed-brick walls, rustic chandeliers, and tall windows overlooking a busy Downtown space ranks among the more sophisticated and romantic dinner spots in the city. Charming chef-owner and Roman expat Simone Savaiano prepares complex modern Italian dishes using mostly local and organic produce and meats, in everything from the selection of cured meats to Dungeness crab salad with endive, arugula, apple, marcona almonds, and champagne vinaigrette. Handmade pastas, including an outstanding maltagliati with rabbit, olives, and pine nuts, are another strength.
Established by the team behind the vaunted weekend dinner house, Han Oak, this cozy, casually minimalist spot in the trendy West End doles out inventive modern Korean bites, from savory bay shrimp pancakes with a soy-vinegar dipping sauce to Manila clams with miso butter and ginger sake. A highly popular brunch is served Friday–Sunday and is especially known for its twisted donuts in tantalizing flavors like milk tea and toasted coconut.
If you have time for just one Portland doughnut shop, choose this wildly popular local chainlet with several locations, including this convivial spot on North Mississippi. From the moment Blue Star opens at 7:30 am, loyal fans flock here to stock up on popular flavors like blueberry-bourbon-basil, passionfruit, and chocolate-almond ganache. There are additiona locations in Southeast, Downtown, South Waterfront, and Portland International Airport.
This often crowded and convivial ramen shop, at the entrance of the Union Alley shopping arcade across from the Ace Hotel, is tiny in size and menu, but popular for its quick-service soups, including spicy red miso with pork belly and egg, and shiitake mushroom shoyu. Seating is at a few small wooden tables and a short bar, so prepare for a wait at lunchtime or on weekend evenings. Boxer Ramen has four additional locations in the Alberta Arts District, Sellwood, Nob Hill, on East Burnside.
A first-rate independent café on a heavily trafficked Downtown corner by MAX and streetcar stops, Case Study serves small-batch, house-roasted coffee in a variety of formats, from Chemex to Aeropress to crowds of regulars. There are additional locations in Nob Hill, Hollywood, and Alberta.
This Old Town landmark, located near the river and Voodoo Doughnuts, has oysters baked Rockefeller-style, stewed, and on the half shell, but the venerable 1907 restaurant offers plenty of other tasty local seafood, including steamed clams, Dungeness crab stew, and beer-battered cold-smoked salmon. The collection of steins, plates, and marine art fills beams, nooks, crannies, and nearly every inch of wall space.
This extravagant rooftop restaurant and lounge on the top floor of The Nines hotel seems fresh out of LA—a look and feel that is, indeed, a departure from Portland's usual no-fuss vibe. The retro-chic interior has an extravagant, space-age, airport-lounge feel, and the outdoor patio—furnished with low, white couches and bright-orange tables and chairs—offers panoramic views of the Downtown skyline. It's not just about the view here at this see-and-be-seen late-night lounge, with the kitchen turning out fantastic pan-Asian small plates.
Angular wood-cut wall mountings and soft overhead globe lamps impart a subtly chic vibe at this upbeat mod-Mediterranean restaurant that divides its menu into "from the grill" (fennel-crusted rib eye, Spanish octopus) and "roasted and fried" (chicken in a Calabrian-chili tomato sauce, Sicilian eggplant parmigiana). If you were hoping to avoid carbs, think again: the homemade pastas are divine, as is the focaccia, baked fresh daily by the in-house bakery.
Inside this sleek Woodstock café, with additional locations Downtown and on East Burnside, patrons sip fine coffees sourced from Central America, South America, and Africa, and indulge in breakfast and lunch fare, such as savory and sweet porridges, granola, toasts, and salads. Finnish owner Wille Yli-Luoma brings a modern, minimalist aesthetic to this striking space with plenty of tables for working and socializing.
One of Portland's original farm-to-table restaurants, this classic eatery, opened in 1994 by renowned namesake chef Greg Higgins, has built its menu—and its reputation—on its dedication to local, seasonal, organic ingredients. Higgins' dishes display the diverse bounty of the Pacific Northwest, incorporating ingredients like heirloom tomatoes, forest mushrooms, mountain huckleberries, Pacific oysters, Oregon Dungeness crab, and locally raised pork.
Diners have been enjoying fresh Pacific Northwest seafood in Jake's warren of wood-paneled dining rooms for more than a century. The back bar came around Cape Horn during the 1880s, and the chandeliers hanging from the high ceilings date from 1881. The restaurant, now operated by the McCormick & Schmick's chain, gained a national reputation in 1920, when crawfish was added to the menu. White-coated waiters take your order from an almost endless sheet of daily seafood specials—which can include cedar-plank-roasted salmon, pecan-crusted catfish, Dungeness crab, and Bay shrimp cakes. If you're dining during crawfish season (May–September), sample the tasty crustacean in pie, cooked creole style, or in a Cajun-style stew over rice. The daily happy hour in the bar is one of the best deals in town, with handcrafted drinks, $4 cheeseburgers, $5 fish tacos, and other toothsome bargains.
Slip off your shoes and step inside one of the tatami rooms or pull up a chair at the sushi bar at this unassuming but outstanding Downtown Japanese restaurant. So ordinary looking it barely stands out among the office towers near Keller Auditorium, the restaurant draws a crowd of locals and Japanese businesspeople who order from the wide-ranging but well-executed menu.
On the 30th floor of the U.S. Bank Tower, the Portland City Grill has bragging rights for best dinner view in town, which makes up for the rather unremarkable steakhouse fare. Gaze over the city skyline and the distant Cascade and Coast mountains from a window table. The adjoining bar and lounge has comfortable armchairs along its windowed walls, which are nearly always occupied.
This first U.S. outpost of a popular Tokyo izakaya franchise is on the leafy Park Blocks, steps from several theaters and museums, and offers a reasonably priced, extensive menu, especially during happy hour, which runs a lot longer than in most restaurants in town. Choose a seat in the lively bar area, with both tables and counter seating, or one of the darker booths in the main dining room.
A pioneer in Portland's artisanal coffee experience, Stumptown Coffee Roasters has expanded into a nationally revered brand. There are several local cafés—including this bustling storefront space in Old Town—where hip baristas, well versed in all things coffee, whip up delicious espresso drinks. Not far away, the Harvey Milk Street location adjoins the trendy Ace Hotel.
College students, local workers, tourists, and fans of authentic Chinese food pile into this brightly lighted, unfussy restaurant to indulge in heaping platters of hot-and-spicy crawfish, cumin lamb, crispy chicken with hot garlic sauce, and braised beef brisket noodle soup. Although the menu draws on all different regions of China, the Sichuan fare is especially good.
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