3 Best Shopping in Portland, Oregon

This once-dilapidated warehouse houses an upstairs workshop for makers of artisanal goods and an inspiring downstairs retail space where you'll find a carefully curated selection of lifestyle goods for every room in the home, many of them produced locally—some as local as upstairs. Among the treasures, look for warm and soft camp blankets and Navajo rugs with vibrant prints, women's jewelry in a variety of simple-but-beautiful styles, bath salts and soaps, and quite a few larger pieces of distinctive furniture.

Food writer Mark Bitterman (not to be confused with food writer Mark Bittman) knows a thing or two about salt—he's written popular books on the subject, and he's the James Beard Award–winning owner of this small purveyor of gourmet finishing salts, some of them smoked or infused with unusual flavors, like cherry and plums, or saffron. At this flagship location (there are others in Nob Hill and Hawthorne) you can also purchase the additional magical touches you might need to create the perfect dinner party, from Oregon and European wines and vermouths, to fresh-cut flowers, aromatic cocktail bitters, and high-quality, single-origin chocolates.

Here, science and biology mix with whimsy and imagination. You'll find everything from taxidermied scorpions and baby goats to ostrich eggs and ceramic chimes. It's a fascinating and strangely beguiling mix of goods, although not for the faint of heart.