Portland’s Top 50 Restaurants (2024)

Akadi is refreshingly immersive, designed to evoke conviviality like few other restaurants. The overall effect is personal, approachable, and inclusive, with a particularly ardent following among Portland’s vegan community. Order peanut stew with fufu (a kind of sticky cassava dough perfect for dunking), or beef brochette skewers served with smoky jollof rice and a dash of Akadi’s
cult tomato sauce, also available in bottles to go. Lose yourself in the room among the hanging twinkle lights, low-slung couches, co*cktails made with baobab and banana, Yoruban wall masks, and West African jazz. Live music at restaurants—nearly a dead art form—is alive and well at Akadi.—Jordan Michelman

HOSFORD-ABERNETHY

Who makes Portland’s best pizza? Arguments rage here like Scripture debates. But for a strong contingency, 20-year-old Apizza Scholls is the Bible: muscular, almost forbidding behemoths of neo-Neapolitan splendor, made with eccentric perfectionism and fine-tuned toppings. Build your own pie, revel in an East Coast classic, add some tongue-sized smoked belly bacon, or dive into the Diablo Blanco, a sauce-free wonder of creamy ricotta pools, jalapeño wheels, and a roasted tomato–pumpkin seed pesto that tastes, somehow, like chorizo. The whole-leaf caesar has its own believers. The menu rarelychanges, so it’s easy to forget, seven nights a week, one of America’s best pizzas is emerging from an electric oven on SE Hawthorne.—Karen Brooks

sunnyside

Shh. For the past few years, Southeast Portlanders and industry folks have kept Bellwether Bar as their own in-the-know neighborhood jewel of the highest order. The setting: a wonderfully warm historic 1910-era building off the shoulder slope of Mount Tabor. Here, chef Jimmy Askren approaches the idea of a PNW public house with genuine intent—crispy prawns with Old Bay co*cktail sauce, locally sourced beef and pork protein mains, deviled eggs for snacking, and a bar burger that disappears by the dozenfrom the kitchen each night. The whole is greater than the parts in a well-worn dining room that creaks with history and leads to a surprisingly large and hidden back patio. Forgiveness, please, for blowing its cover.—JM

mt. tabor

What makes life worth living? A glorious morning pastry case. A cozy breakfast counter. Some righteous pizza, yanked from a brick oven. Plus, a few things that scream fresh, seasonal, and vitamins. Café Olli nails it. Two years ago, this was an insider’s secret. Now, join the line and pray the pastries aren’t gone. Plush whipped ricotta toast and a spicy pork sausage burger are breakfast stars. The crisp Pomodoro pizza would make a Goodfella smile, down to the razor-thin garlic, and each slice heaped with fresh-made stracciatella cheese, cold and creamy. Scan the pastry case for creative Danish, Portuguese egg custard tarts, or a commanding pain au chocolat.—KB

King

While we were sleeping, four-year-old Campana
has quietly morphed into a must-know Italian restaurant, warm and thoughtful to the bone. The mood: part New Jersey food DNA, part New York fine dining. Chef-owner George Kaden comes from both worlds, and he’s got the meatballs to prove it—gorgeous beef-pork orbs
swaddled in a near-spiritual evocation of East Coast tomato sauce, complete with thick, crusty garlic toast. Pastas are tone-perfect, elegantly silky tagliatelle to rustic cavatelli. Risotto is scratch-made, to order. Roasted chicken “scarpariello,” braised with sausage, pepperoncini, and deep, deep savor, vies for Portland’s chicken crown. Good co*cktails, a Godfather-level cannoli, and attentive service seal the deal, as jazz tootles overhead. —KB

woodlawn

Le Pigeon’s next-door sister has its own groove, a neo diner inspired by France, gonzo party snacks, and wherever the kitchen wants to roam. Wild à la carte concepts turn up regularly. Hamachi tartare with banana, caviar, and lime leaf, anyone? Or how about a beef tongue and Gruyère quesadilla, its interior crunchy with Funyuns? Dunk it in French onion dip to double the pleasure. But some things never change: the vaunted
White Castle–esque steam burgers, duck-fat grilled hotcakes, towering soft-serve parfaits, an A-level wine list, and confident co*cktails. The family-friendly Oregon City location mixes “little duck” dishes with Canard staples. Who else serves chicken tenders and foie gras dumplings in French onion soup?—KB

buckman, oregon city

Dinners are high-end homey. Seasonality is a touchstone. The nerdy wine list impresses. Service is total pro. Yet, you never forget you’re in laid-back Portland, dining on a sleepy residential corner beneath idyllic Mt. Tabor Park. Dishes are pretty but not studied, interesting but never try too hard. Go chef’s choice or à la carte, lovely soups to spring raab tempura to full-on lamb osso bucco. Socca, a rolled chickpea pancake, crackles like a giant, grill-toasted potato chip. The deluxe package deal: caviar and house onion bread to start; a box of Coquine’s epic chocolate chip cookies delivered with the check. Next door’s Coquine Market is also a sweet morning coffee and pastry shop and a super casual evening café, walk-ins only.—KB

mt. tabor

An ever-changing collection of chefs, menus, and visions animate two spaces steps apart, dubbed Dame and Lil’ Dame. Chefs typically host a room three nights per week in open-ended residencies. Expect good fun and food from industry folks testing out a way forward, together. Check the Dame website to find the current culinary playlist at Lil’ Dame, which tends to shift regularly. Veteran chef Patrick McKee’s pasta craft and Italian-American roots cooking permanently anchors the larger space.—KB

concordia

Portland’s mythical food scene lives on within this perfectionistic, votive-glowing, defiantly uncool den. No chef statements here, just a sensibility—pristine oysters, masterful seared
scallops, or perhaps duck sided by persimmons so ripe you’d swear it’s custard. The worn wood bar hides a deep trove of cult Champagnes and infallible wines poured into glassware typically reserved for the swanky set. At 76, Portland food legend Jerry Huisinga (Genoa, Bar Mingo) has teamed up with Davenport’s ingredient Jedi Kevin Gibson—two white-jacketed titans together at last. It’s like watching Pacino and De Niro in Heat. Huisinga makes the ethereal gnocchi; Gibson makes the devastating lamb neck sugo on top. It may be the best thing you’ll eat this year.—KB

kerns

De Noche and Bar Comala share a serene, transportive space on the North Park Blocks. Here, young chef Dani Morales cooks from the hip. Endlessly complex moles are built over days and comprise dozens of ingredients. Her family-recipe birria arrives like a jolt direct from Jalisco. Local salmon aguachile is so tart and sweet and hot you find yourself drinking from the bottom of the bowl. These places are heaven for beverage geeks, with a dozen Mexican wines by the glass and more than 100 mezcals at Bar Comala, many hard to find, plus my favorite Negroni in the city. You’ll find yourself thinking about the experience for days.—JM

Pearl District

Our 2019 Restaurant of the Year is now an icon of affordable fun—and if anything, better than ever. Soak it in at sidewalk huts or the bumping café-bar. The hit parade includes brisket burnt end coconut curry and a luscious smoked lamb shoulder massaman number. BBQ fried rice is a house star, euphorically spicy. Some impressive new dishes have joined the party: herb-singing shrimp and pomelo salad and lusty smoked pork belly burnt ends. Luscious umbrella drinks are not so much sipped as sucked down exuberantly, as if this were the last hour on Earth. What a way to go. Good luck parking and battling the lines.—KB

boise

The daytime-nighttime split at this Cantonese dim sum hall delivers two hits in one dining room. By day, carts whir around the room, serving bowls of steaming congee, dozens of classic dishes, and less common options like popping orange juice balls or red rice shrimp rolls. By night, Excellent Cuisine roars again: whole crabs are fried with ginger and scallion, tables crush bottles of Tsingtao or pop expensive cabernets, and wonton soup releases enough herbaceous depth to cure any ailment. The parking lot is bursting, and somebody’s great uncle is out front smoking every 20 minutes. Tables stay perpetually full, and for excellent reason.—JM

Montavilla

Everything here speaks to my soul. Not just the drinking snacks, which are pretty perfect, but the gritty-meets-glamorous aesthetic and not one, but two turntables. In the mix is arguably the city’s best cheeseburger (at least according to Portland Monthly’s obsessive Burger Cabal) and without question, its wildest nachos, plus James Beard’s famed onion and butter sandwich, perfectly expressed. The “hot and sour spiced Indian fries” elicit F-bombs of joy around the table. That doesn’t count the careful co*cktails. Expatriate, a destination since 2013, is more than a “bar.” The house philosophy is “not just a dish, but a perfect version of that thing, a serious attempt.” Truth.—KB

Concordia

Crispy! Sweet! Spicy! The fried chicken is crackling, the beer is flowing, the room is glowing, and now a heaving tray of tteokbokki goes drifting past, redolent with a molten layer of mozzarella cheese. Someone orders a bottle of soju and then everyone else joins in, half bottles of the good stuff zooming around in a ballet of brightly lit bibendum. Are we in Seoul or K-Town LA? No, it’s downtown Beaverton. And while you might wait for a table—perhaps even an hour on a busy Friday night—the lure of that sweet-spicy fried chicken is eminently worth it. The walls vibrate with energy and Korean film posters. You want two orders of wings—both styles—and you want beer. Keep it coming!—JM

beaverton

G-Love is the center of Slabtown’s beating heart, and it knows it. Chef Garrett Benedict serves a manicured menu of clean-living cuisine to a manicured crowd with “Stayin’ Alive” semi-ironicallyblaring. Avocados abound, giving body to the likes of the farm-confetti Ensalada Bomba. Love it or pretend to hate it, the seed-clad Crusty Avocado, stuffed with caviar and tuna poke, is an icon of Portland dining. Stick to the lighter fare; even avocado ranch can’t save the fried chicken. At the new next-door bar, the Love Shack, kitschy-delicious snacks like wonton tuna tacos come dim sum style. G-Love’s universe knows what it is and plays the part well.—Matthew Trueherz

northwest district

Nowhere else delivers a comparable parade of Indonesian-Malaysian-Chinese(ish) foods buzz-sawed with family traditions, Northwest ingredients, and a freewheeling cabinet of Southeast Asian spices, food to co*cktails. The expressive à la carte menu might juggle ecstatic roti flatbread, dry-aged steak tartare scooped up with squid ink crackers, and grilled albacore dabbed with dragon fruit sambal matah. Or just let the kitchen cook up its family-style Rice Table feast. The popping boba Jell-O shots, eaten with a spoon from a tiny cup, rethink the notion of a co*cktail. Have two. Outdoor eating nooks are tricked out like souk vendors, with speakers beaming disco and reggae.—KB

Hollywood

Tortas on toasted bolillos are the show at this hopping neighborhood spot. The carnitas-stuffed torta ahogada—planted in a pool of achiote tomato sauce for “dipping or drowning”—skips across the tongue like a smiling demon, messy, spicy, wicked delicious. Desayuno, another fave, taps braised beef and chicharrón de queso to upgrade the fried-egg sandwich. The mile-high hamburguesa has its own following, towering with avocado and ham and queso Oaxaca. Meanwhile, one of the city’s best bowls lives here, its pinto beans, lime rice, and esquites swathed in avocado dressing and condiments. No shortage of mezcal or good tunes.—KB

kerns

These sister noodle soup spots conjure liquid poems straight from Vietnam. The original recipes date back to 2004, when Christina “Ha” Luu (who passed away last year) and William Vuong launched Hà VL, a legend far and wide. (Pavement bassist Mark Ibold famously professed his devotion in Lucky Peach magazine.) Today, their children and grandchildren carry the torch the VL way: two or three soups daily, each offered only once a week. Flavor nuancesvary per location. Hà VL is the north star under longtime steward Peter Vuong, a 2024 James Beard Best Chef Northwest semifinalist. Soupers with true religion come on Thursdays for the ecstatic snail meatball noodle soup. Annam VL, opened in late 2023, adds a more modern sensibility and some eye-catching street foods. —KB

POWELLHURST-GILBERT (HÀ VL), SUNNYSIDE (ANNAM VL), FOSTER-POWELL (ROSE VL)

This house of gimbap parties and late-night karaoke unfolds in a magical indoor-outdoor space. Everyone feels welcome in Peter Cho and Sun Young Park’s “home,” as kids romp around a grassy backyard in full view of candlelit dining nooks. The interactive menu celebrates Koreanculture and Oregon ingredients. Expect a little feast of seasoned vegetables, grilled things, classic Korean garnishes, modern sauces, and crisp seaweed sheets for rolling—meat, seagan or vegan, $65 a person. Add beers, makgeolli, or an interesting wine. Charming eccentrics who double as staff bring it all home. As the last dinner is served, Han Oak transforms into a boisterous karaoke joint, disco lights and fog machine included. You in?—KB

kerns

“What if we make a place like the ones we love in Europe, only here in Portland?” This impulse is easy to dream, but difficult to achieve. No place pulls it off better in 2024 than Heavenly Creatures, a waltzing, wafting puff of perfumed air in the guise of a Parisian wine cave lost on NE Broadway. Like at those 11th Arrondissem*nt joints, bottles of wine line the walls and a dozen eminently curated glasses make an appearance each night, with an unapologetic focus on France. Look closer and you’ll find little plates of yellowtail toast, schmaltz beignets, shrimp in lobster oil, or soft cheeses served with potato chips. The wine flows. The room glows. C’est si bon.—JM

sullivan's gulch

In 1984, Greg Higgins biked to Portland and launched a farm-to-table food revolution. First at the Heathman, then at his own restaurant, the gardener-chef gave voice and direction to everything we now hold as our Portland food birthright: local-first dining, smoking, pickling, and charcuterie, before anyone could pronounce the word. Today, Higgins (with longtime business partner Paul Mallory) is the last man standing from the first wave of Portland’s Beard-winning chefs in the 1990s. The menu still boasts world-class charcuterie, a formidable beer list, eclectic vegetable dishes, and Higgins’s loyalty to local farmers. The bar is a treasure, with Belgian Chimay on tap, lunch or dinner. Service is super engaged, near Shakespearean in delivery. Come here to bask in warmth, commitment, and Portland history.—KB

downtown

What would fancy Korean BBQ taste like if cut loose in Portland? Jeju, one of 2023’s best new restaurants, has answers. No tableside gas grills—the kitchen does the work over the embers of a wood fire. Throw in whole animal butchery, dry-aging, some modernist touches, and soju that squirts out of a frog’s mouth at your table. At the bar, your Negroni is infused with Jolly Pong cereal snack. What started as four-course set meals now includes rollicking à la carte options: dry-aged beef bao burgers with thrice-cooked fries and rose tteokbokki—creamy, spicy, pink-hued rice cakes topped with pepperoni pizza elements. In short: cult food. It’s a beautiful sequel to Han Oak, from freethinkers Peter Cho and Sun Young Park.—KB

Buckman

Can you hear it? The rhythm pulses through you—the irrepressible backbeat unce-unce-unce of Euro-disco, ever-present on the soundtrack inside Kachka. Like a dacha dance party masquerading as a restaurant, Kachka draws on a panoply of pan-Soviet influences to create a raucous atmosphere unlike anywhere else in the city. With Uzbek shashlik, Armenian yogurt dip, Georgian risotto, Ukrainian sour cherry dumplings, this is resolutely not “Russian food.” It’s the Iron Curtain transformed into a discotheque, fueled by a dozen seasonally flavored vodkas, chased by pickle juice and salt-lick splashes of creamy Borjomi mineral water. Don’t fight it, feel it.—JM

Buckman

Sellwood’s 16-seat sushi bistro is entirely run by married couple Shinji and Izumi Uehara. Shinji slices sushi behind the counter, while chef Izumi doubles as host and server. No rushing; it’s just you, them, small plates, and sushi. Nightly nigiri specials feature rare finds from Tokyo, delicate silver halfbeak fish to golden-eye snapper. Order anything or everything, especially the fatty sardines, melty chu-toro, and signature saba battera roll (mackerel-pressed sushi). Hot food is also a draw, from chawanmushi full of seasonal mushrooms to steaming bowls of duck soba. Sake is carefully
selected to pair with seasonal ingredients. Heads up: max group is two, and reservations are required.—Katherine Chew Hamilton

Sellwood-Moreland

Kann is more than a restaurant; it’s a force field. Reservations? Even famous names are turned away from this Haitian hot spot (pro tip: nab a 4pm rez).Chef Gregory Gourdet is a wrecking ball of drive and vision, with back-to-back James Beard awards for Best New Restaurant in America (2023) and Best Chef Northwest (2024).If only the Blazers could draft him. Kann has its own food language: spice rumbling; a home for soursop and Oregon berries; and free of dairy and gluten. Vegans feel at home and carnivores get a bestial smoked beef rib. Feast on all the starters, warm plantain buns to the titanically crunchy akra fritters. Revelations include the peanut butter–creamed collards, a fork-dropping epis sausage, and hearth-charred jerk cauliflower. Multifaceted desserts nearly steal the show. —KB

Buckman

On the second floor of a converted house, this clandestine space bumps like a supper club on a good night. It’s a newish, Frenchish project from chef Joel Stocks, formerly of mod-cuisine darling Holdfast. His cooking here fits the homey room but maintains a cheffy rigor (even more so on a Wednesday-only tasting menu). Tête de Moine, an alpine cheese shaved into rosettes that cluster like white carnations, is the perfect start or end to any meal. Onion soup bubbles under a fan of Gruyère-crusted bread pudding slices. And the confit duck leg, cleverly deboned and rolled into a neat parcel, could redeem any botched Thanksgiving. Partner Jeff Vejr (Les Caves) quietly steers a global wine list that goes as deep as you want to follow it.—MT

Hosford-Abernethy

Think of Langbaan and phu*ket Café as happy roommates who share a love of refined Thai flavors, fun co*cktails, and eclectic music—both from the Akkapong “Earl” Ninsom and Eric Nelson school of Portland dining (see also Eem and Yaowarat). Langbaan is, pure and simple, one of the country’s most original Thai tasting menus—with the 2024 James Beard Outstanding Restaurant award to prove it. The blueprint includes ever-changing themes, historical dishes, modern touches, and a strong nod to local ingredients; Thursdays through Sundays, reservation only. phu*ket Café has à la carte dishes big and small, lunch or dinner. Standouts include the dramatic whole fried pompano salad, peanut brittle–topped ceviche, and wondrous fried tofu. Bonus: outdoor seats in a colorful Thai “train car.” —KB

Northwest District

A new power chef couple is rising. John and Madeline Denison celebrate the food they once cooked as expats in Paris: old-school France, but more fun and less starch. Currently popping up two nights per week at Magna Kusina, they serve an à la carte menu with all the swoon and rigor of Paris’s hot bistronomy movement. It’s like finding Escoffier in a Portland band. The “foico taco” is a wicked play on the ice cream truck classic, dipped in blood orange magic shell. Poached pigs’ brains sell out quickly. And the gloriously roasted half-duck comes with foie mousse–stuffed brioche, fresh jam, and chamomile duck broth, spilled over fresh greens. I’ll fight you for a reservation.—KB

HOSFORD-ABERNETHY

The year is 2007. Food-world heavyweights flock to gritty Le Pigeon for send-ups of French food and foie gras by 25-year-old gastrobasher Gabriel Rucker as Metallica blazes. Flash to 2024. Crosby, Stills & Nash is on the sound system, and sober chef-dad Rucker’s biggest brag is coaching Little League. The heaviest metal in the house is Rucker’s two James Beard awards. Le Pigeon is now middle age: low-key cool, quasi-elegant, with nothing to prove, and tasting menus only, meat or meat-free but otherwise impossible to pigeonhole, each dish a different planet. Chatty, personable chef Dana Francisco, Rucker’s right hand, holds the fort most nights. The big revelation? The vegetarian menu. Who would have thought that Rucker could put squash and black trumpet mushrooms on the same pedestal as braised pig feet? The wine list from Andy Fortgang, one of the city’s great palates, remains outstanding. Zero-proof co*cktails are daring, but the foie gras co*ke float is pure evil genius.—KB

Buckman

Great traditional pizza is everywhere. But there is only one Lovely’s Fifty Fifty. Flavors you don’t associate with pizza march across the chewy sourdough crust. A spring pie mingled taleggio cheese and stinging nettle leaves, which bike-riding owner Sarah Minnick foraged that morning in, of all places, Forest Park. A diner once spotted her milling about the urban park’sbushes: “Is that you, Chef Minnick?” No wonder Italian pizza master Franco Pepe is a fan. This is pizza on its own mountaintop, in its own conversation, with a distinct taste of place. Throw in some wildflowers and Portland weird. Netflix’s Chef’s Table: Pizza devotes an entire episode to the Minnick way. The ice cream is just as good.—KB

Boise

This charming spot evokes small-town Italy and the best of Portland, from the handmade ambience to candlelit grocery shelves. The space has the feel of a ladylike hardware store, with teeny tables, indoors and out. Unadorned plates carry the kitchen’s paean to honest Italian food: pasta, fresh focaccia, and olive oil cake. Make a party out of the $2 antipasti list, slurp a truly soulful cappelletti in brodo, or make hay on insider favorites—stuffed trout, octopus with potatoes, and a hunk of blackened cabbage seemingly cooked by an ironworker, twinkling with garlic oil. Nearly everything is under $20, and the terrific Italian wine list is priced to drink.—KB

Buckman

Chef Carlo Lamagna serves the city’s most polished Filipino food at Magna Kusina, but the setting is comfortably convivial. Staples skew traditional: charcoal-grilled skewers, longanisa (sausage) to pork intestine; garlicky bowls of laing, thick with coconut-braised taro greens; killer classic lumpia. Others twist recipes,nostalgia, and cultures, like Mom’s Crab Fat Noodles—squid ink spaghetti in sarsa, the funky-hot coconut sauce, with a heavy ration of Dungeness. Industry advocate Lamagna is also a major mentor to upcoming cooks, particularly those with Southeast Asian heritage.—MT

Hosford-Abernethy

Portland’s most unique lunch spot is an intimatelittle kingdom of French-Norwegian fervor, antique dishes, baking joy, chanteuse music, and seasonal excitement. It comes together in a daily à la carte menu from the talented Kristen Murray. Portland’s most finicky eaters come for quality seafood, a true French quiche with a custardy jiggle, or cloudlike polenta clafoutis capped with a gorgeous poached egg. Make a meal of dessert, black pepper cheesecake or lemon soufflé pudding cake tangy enough to win the French Legion of Honor. The cone-shaped chocolate capuchin cakes are insanely good—their tops dipped in Magic Shell, cacao nib crunch, and smoky lapsang souchong tea. Just a whiff is intoxicating.—KB

Downtown

Not much changes at this wonderfully retro, elegantly understated sushi bar and restaurant, owned by the same family since 1988. Except the daily specials board. For my money, this is the most important fresh fish sheet in town, a sighing surfeit of impossibly fresh seafood: Oregon abalone and Japanese firefly squid, Hokkaido uni and Puget Sound oysters, miso stewed mackerel, coastal crab, and the list goes on. Murata occupies a beautiful duality—Japanese cuisine through a Pacific Northwest lens, served with uncommon grace and hospitality. The folks next to you at the sushi bar have been coming here for 30 years. I hope to visit for another 30 more.—JM

Downtown

In 2002, budding food philosopher John Taboadaconceived a tiny eat spot with an “only what we love” mindset and a kind of lawlessness in the air, kicking off Portland’s east-side indie food revolution. It remains an unfussy marvel on NE 28th: the dim sum–like plates, the ugly-delicious farm vegetables, the abiding wine passion. The minimalist menus still arrive with a pencil, checklist, and clipboard. Sprawling menus roam the world and our backyard. Weekend brunch is like a farmhouse gone mad—eggs 10 ways, a mountain of crusty bread, and some 20 specials, perhaps steelhead trout toast or braised turnips, roots, stems, and all, served with outsize vintage spoons. If authentic Portland has a definition, Navarre is it.—KB

Kerns

Nodoguro is a high-end restaurant that feels like anything but. Think intimate home dinner party, but with Michelin-caliber omakase and sushi. Diners gather around a festive table in a room that feels like a European apartment, with chef Ryan Roadhouse’s wife, Elena, as host, life coach, and walking culinary wiki. Their personalfood vision is keenly attuned to the seasons and served on flea market plates, some 100 years old. You might find an ethereal sesame tofu or a breath-stealing vision of uni rice and ground espresso. And always, sushi rice arrives as the gods meant it—still warm, fresh from the pot. There’s nothing quite like it anywhere—the transcendent food, the chatterbox vibe, the elusive notion of connection and nourishment. If there’s a better antidote to the Nomas of the world, we haven’t seen it. Reservations go whip-fast. Sign up for the newsletter to get the jump.—KB

kerns

OK Omens values comfort, professionalism, and relatable bistro-modern riffs in a seat-of-its-pants DIY city. House somm Brent Braun has his own following for his zine-like glass menu, strong bottle list, and abiding Riesling obsession. One pour was simply listed as “Natural Red from Oregon’s Most Interesting Winery.” I’m intrigued. You? Musings from high-caliber chef Justin Woodward (Castagna) swing from duck leg confit to burnt beets and tahini to a burger with smoked beef fat remoulade. For dessert, salute to a kitchen that dares to serve Escoffier’s peach melba with flicks of sansho pepper and coffee caramel crunch. Outdoors, the stately umbrella-covered gazebos feel like a forgotten civilization.—KB

hosford-abernethy

Gado Gado’s sister spot is the missing link between sambals, char siu pork, and a rocking burger that juggles American cheese and chile shrimp jam. This is where Indonesian fried chicken thighs share space with salted egg yolk curry fries, as psychedelic Indonesian music wafts overhead. Lunch is gone (sigh) but the signature filet-o-fishball sandwich lives on at night—a Singaporean spin on the Micky D classic, and pretty genius at that. Outdoor seats are prime here, out front or on the backyard summer patio, which boasts its own rhinestone bar and inventive co*cktails.—KB

richmond

A hand-cranked wood-burning grill is the centerpiece of Ox and the chariot to a grunt-worthy pork chop, massive short ribs, and grilled maitake mushrooms, much of it glazed in signature fatty, garlicky “Black Gold” juice drippings. The menu—Argentine-inspired wood grilling, coal-roasted vegetables, a little Portland food mania—rarely changes, and nearly every dish is a classic, from spicy braised beef tripe to octopus with mint aioli to smoked beef tongue carpaccio. Clam chowder is the unexpected star: fresh, deep, and garnished the Ox way, with a smoked bone marrow the size of a Grecian pillar.—KB

eliot

What started as the pop-up dream of two Burmese cooks and their studious American friend has since spread to a pair of permanent locations. Both serve classic, briny tea leaf salads and crunching Malaysian-style fried chicken that glows auburn with a red pepper–lemongrass marinade. Noodles go their own way, mixing Myanmar flavors with the art of Italian pasta, a nod to their work under Michelin-starred chef Andrea Zanella in Kuala Lumpur. Their take on si chet khao swe, wheat noodles tossed with black pepper and roasted pork, has the silky gloss of a spaghetti alla gricia. This grassroots, DIY operation is pushing Burmese food in Portland with unprecedented enthusiasm. —MT

Richmond, Boise

Shake me another martini, please, and make it good and cold. It’s the perfect foil for the city’s best onion rings—for 80 years running, still piping-hot with little drip-drips of sacred oil anointing the white tablecloths. Tucked into one of the little booths at the sunken, dimly lit bar, you can watch the city flow in and out of Ringside, same as it ever was since 1944, modernized just enough to make sense in the twenty-first century. Where else can you choose from three kinds of Japanese Wagyu, six different steak sauces, a Brobdingnagian impressive wine list, and lobster mashed potatoes, all while watching the Blazers lose among your fellow Portlanders? For such utterly distinct pleasures, there is only Ringside.—JM

Northwest District

The best thing about this dark, sexy food and drink cave? You can make your own world here. Every night, every table is a different experience. The guy in the corner might be having an epiphany over old Macallans and Japanese whiskey rarely seen outside collector cabals. Daters at the chef’s counter juggle dill pickle–flavored fries, modernist fried brie sticks, elegant vegetables, and some of Portland’s best pasta. (How is this food still under the radar?) Steps away, at the other marble bar, folks chat up ace bartenders who put the likes of coconut vermouth and popping blueberry pearls in smoky drinks. For all its scholarly curations, Scotch Lodge has not an ounce of pretension. —KB

Buckman

No place better distills the essence of 1970s New York—Mean Streets New York—in pie form. Scott Rivera pays tribute to hometown heroes from Brooklyn. But, typical in Portland, he pulls a hodgepodge of ideologies and obsessions into his pizza gestalt. In the mix: the DNA of a New York corner slice and the art of Neapolitan pie, all melded into something ineluctably crispy, chewy, tender, and tangy. The original Southeast shop has corner-joint character, plus whole pies, limited slices, and a few coveted seats. Northwest has plentiful booths, wine and beer, and Portland’s most serious slice game, sesame-clad Frankie P slices to squares of DeFino pie (grandma-style). Upgrade any slice with a big dollop of decadent burrata for a buck.—KB

Northwest District, Hosford-Abernethy

Lil’ Shalom is a counter service closet of a restaurant capable of satisfying your hankering for falafel, criminally smooth hummus (plain or with pastrami shreds), and extraordinarily airy pita, baked to order. Various sides and snacks fill out the menu, from red schug-spiced fries to sumac-tinged grilled cauliflower, plus desserts and co*cktails, indoors or out. It’s my favorite of a trio of interconnected Mediterranean spots from the Sesame Collective. The Pearl District’s splashy, full-service Mediterranean Exploration Company (a.k.a. MEC), with its lamb-chops-before-the-theater vibe, is the dressiest of the three. Southeast’s bustling Shalom Y’all covers the middle ground: bring a schmancy date, or belly up to the bar for shawarma.—MT

DOWNTOWN (LIL’ SHALOM), BUCKMAN (SHALOM Y’ALL), PEARL DISTRICT (MEC)

Portland’s best Sichuan food hides in a suburban strip. Happy Valley’s Sichuan City is the place for affordable group dinners, raucous fun, and food to match, with a core of dishes rarely found in Portland. Skip the fried rice, noodle dishes, dumplings, and Chinese American items from the mile-long menu. The showpiece is the hard-to-find “bucket fish”—a bubbling, mouth-tinging cauldron of flaky fish, tofu skin, and pickled cabbage in Sichuan peppercorn. You need six people to take it down. Other finds: fried prawns coated in salted egg yolk, the best Chongqing hot chickenaround, and custardy jade tofu. Even the dry-fried
green beans are a notch above. Downtown sister restaurant Sichuan Taste dives deeper into protein choices like bullfrog and crawfish, but, alas, no bucket fish. —KCH

Happy Valley, Downtown

If you’re looking for great steak frites, you’re in the right place. Think thick, juicy overlapping slices, each with crusty edges and hot red-pink centers under rich, glossy demi-glace. On the side, tender, slender fries. A steak frites fanatic
calls it “flat-out one of the Top 5 dishes in Portland.” Since 2010, Aaron Barnett has been a keeper of French comfort, doling out tradition and generosity. The low-lit dining room and handsome bar are welcome retreats for oysters, poached shrimp, scallop crudo, or even a boisterous burger. Traditional works here; the experimental neo-bistro ideas are more adrift. Lots of good French and Oregon wines roam the list.—KB

Northwest District

In Portland’s eternal best pho argument, Tho’m, opened in 2021, belongs in the conversation. The house broth—a head rush of slow-cooked marrow bones under slices of melting tenderloin—may win the championship belt. The mood—midcentury modern hideout meets Vietnamese mini-mart—comes from the mind of LA photographer Johnny Le. In the kitchen, younger brother Jimmy pays tribute to their parents’ pioneering Pho’ Lê in Vancouver, Washington, while adding his stamp. Care and quality define the four-dish menu. Vegan pho is the sleeper, and Dad’s Barbecue Pork Noodles remind us that father really does know best.—KB

Concordia

It’s something of a Portland tradition: deceptivelysimple, uproariously delicious places, the likes of Tulip Shop Tavern, where high levels of food and drink execution meet a lowbrow theoryof dive bar comfort and smash burger phenomenology. Tulip comes on like a late-aughts North Portland boozer—all rickety tables and sticky bar-tops—but then you’re served an original co*cktail with Haitian rum and falernum, or hand-cut fries with a choice of seven house sauces, and it reminds you this place is serious. Some nights there’s a fried bologna sandwich (hello, they make the bologna), while other nights you’ll find a definitive patty melt. This is Old Portland soul but with New Portland execution.—JM

Humboldt

Xiao Ye, Mandarin for “midnight snack,” reflects owners Louis Lin and Jolyn Chen’s Taiwanese American identity. But their “first generation American food” is purposefully eclectic and open-ended. And the snacks are pretty fancy; the couple cut their teeth at Michelin-starred (DC’s Pineapple and Pearls) and celebrity-packed (LA’s Felix) restaurants. Their place gracefully swirls the entirety of their experience, and the staff’s. Truffles, masa, Japanese curry, hearts of palm, and guanciale are all fair game. One truly flawless, classic Italian pasta—rigatoni all’Amatriciana lately—is as much astaple as Jolyn’s Favorite Noodle V.1, dressed in a flurry of Taiwanese condiments. Servers wear their personalities on their mismatched T-shirt sleeves, collectively celebrating individuality, same as the food.—MT

Humboldt

One word captures our 2024 Restaurant of the Year: transporting. Yaowarat celebrates Bangkok’s Chinatown with pulsing energy, flavor truth, and exceptional service. Think Blade Runner meets Thai-Chinese night market, with most dishes $18 or less. It’s a multidimensionalexperience of cinematic light and hypnotic playlists cut from vintage vinyl. Essential eats: thunderously crunchy chive cakes, shattering bean curd skin dumplings, wok-charred guay tiew kua gai noodles, Chinese black olive pork, and heavenly Hawaiian buns with two dipping custards. House co*cktails are lip-smacking joy rides. An all-star industry band of Akkapong “Earl” Ninsom and Eric Nelson (Eem, Langbaan), Kyle Linden Webster (Expatriate), and chef Sam Smith bring it all to life, plus a coterie of talented cooks and floor generals.—KB

Montavilla