My friends over at PDXeater have complied your must visit restaurants for the month - all 38 of them. Check this out. If you plan carefully maybe you can visit all of them this month. I'll post the top gyms in Portland next month! :) Happy New Year.
-B
___
It's time to update the Eater 38, your answer and ours to any question that begins, “Can you recommend a restaurant…” This highly elite group covers the entire city, spans myriad cuisines, and collectively satisfies all of your restaurant needs, save for those occasions when you absolutely must spend half a paycheck. Every couple of months, we'll be adding pertinent restaurants that were omitted, have newly become eligible (restaurants must be open at least six months), or have stepped up their game.
This time around, after poring over reader emails and comments, we've made some major overhauls, dropping Pine State Biscuits, Meat Cheese Bread, Afrique Bistro, Yakuza, Serratto, Bar Mingo, Navarre, Cafe Castagna, and Patanegra — not because they aren't great spots, but simply because time keeps moving on.
That's the bad news. The great news is that in their place comes Tasty N Sons,Metrovino, Olympic Provisions, Bar Avignon, Castagna, Laurelhurst Market, Kenny & Zuke's, Jade Teahouse, and Bamboo Sushi (phew), all presented in random order here. Welcome to the show.
And, just in case, rather than a stage-4 meltdown over our having excluded your favorite restaurant from the list, wouldn't it be more productive to just nominate it for inclusion?
Clyde Common
Clyde Common’s uber-hip, dimly lit common room offers a snapshot of Portland, Oregon in all its skinny jeans-wearing, pork belly-eating, pig-loving, slow food …
Pok Pok
Classically trained chef Andy Ricker moves to Thailand, learns to cook Thai food better than the locals, gets a well-deserved 14-page spread in Food & Wine and gets …
Tanuki
Chef Janis Martin dishes out Japanese- and Korean-influenced izakaya grub with tons of attitude in this tiny underground bar. Name your price and allow Martin to dish it …
The Country Cat
The Country Cat is all about American food, prepared by a chef, Adam Sappington, who understands and executes the nuances of old world cuisine. You might be ordering …
Screen Door
Local-sourced and southern-fried, everything on this menu from the pimento cheese scramble in the AM to the evening’s brined bird keeps the locals lining up for …
Biwa
One part ramen den, one part izakaya, two parts modernista basement bunker, this late-night chefs’ hangout is run by the most improbable Japanese chef in town: a …
Paley's
This is the Balthazar of Portland: the place that everyone agrees on, and a place that manages to be creative, yet so classic. Whether you’re enjoying mussels…
Bamboo Sushi
Portland's "green" ethos is no more obvious than at Bamboo — the world's first certified-sustainable sushi restaurant — where always-fresh catch plays nicely …
Podnah's
Podnah’s hits the lowest common denominator of what makes food satisfying: there’s salt, sweetness, fat, and Rodney Muirhead’s sauce has the perfect …
Tasty N Sons
John Gorham's insanely popular second spot reinvents Portland's favorite meal — brunch — taking it to new heights worth the inevitable looooong wait. The …
Toro Bravo
Toro Bravo is about as Spanish as the French revolution (have you ever seen a pulled pork sandwich in a restaurant in Madrid?) but regardless of nationality, this is damn …
Lucky Strike
Portland’s best Sichuan spot is enjoying its new Hawthorne digs, but its menu remains the same. The kitchen goes through five to six 20-pound bags of dried Sichuan …
Kenny & Zuke's Delicatessen
Yes, it's packed with tourists from the neighboring Ace Hotel, but Kenny & Zuke's is the closest thing Portland has to a New York-style Jewish deli: No "artisan"…
Ocean City
This Hong Kong-style dim sum and seafood house is the cheapest ticket to Hong Kong – dim sum is served sum seven days a week and they’ve got classic and …
Lincoln Restaurant
As the sole fine-dining spot in the rapidly gentrifying N. Williams 'hood (for now), the menu at Jenn Louis' Lincoln restaurant is an admirable study in simplicity. From …
Park Kitchen
One of the first in a class of restaurants that would define an entire city, Park Kitchen, which opened in 2002, is home to Scott Dolish, a chef who likes to pair flavor …
Bunk Sandwiches
Tommy Habetz and Nick Wood have turned this little storefront into a local and then national legend. What you’ll get here aren’t just sandwiches – these …
Simpatica (Brunch)
You can either find seven friends and make a coveted reservation, or be willing to stand in a basement hallway line for however long it takes for the people who got up at …
Evoe
At this little counter tucked to the side of specialty grocery Pastaworks, Kevin Gibson is, more so than any chef in town, about the ingredients. A squash salad is just …
Nostrana
Intensely regional Italian food, wood-fired oven pizza, and a totally accessible menu make Cathy Whims (once of Genoa) the most renowned female chef in Portland. A barrel …
Metrovino
Don't call it a wine bar (though it's a pretty awesome one at that). At Metrovino, chef Greg Denton consistently serves up the most experimental dishes in the Pearl …
Ken's Artisan Bakery
Some saviors wandered the wilderness for thirty days. Others were tech refugees who moved to France and learned perfect bread. Ken opened what has been called the …
Beaker & Flask
Beaker & Flask elevates the idea of "bar food" past burger-and-fries into territory more likely to offer skate wing, chicken livers, and maple-braised pork belly: …
Tabla
Tabla’s three-course prix fixe meal, put together by Anthony Cafiero, is one of the best deals in town, and his northern Italian menu one of Portland's most …
Bar Avignon
Bar Avignon knows how to turn on the charm: With its inviting bar wrapped around a miniscule open kitchen, owners Randy Goodman and Nancy Hunt create the perfect setting …
Olympic Provisions
It's best known for its meaty goodness — Olympic Provisions famously boasts Oregon’s first USDA certified meat-curing facility — but venture past …
Apizza Scholls
Thin-crust East Coast/New Haven-style pizza (their website’s all about the pizzaiolo), this southeast joint closes when they out of dough, which they stick in …
Broder Cafe
If Alvar aalto and Betty Crocker had a love child, it would be this Southeast Clinton Scandinavian place, and it would arrive on small wooden boards accompanied by …
Castagna
Matt Lightner's molecular experiments have caught the attention of everyone from Food & Wine to the NYTimes, and Castagna has quickly become the poster-child …
Ha & VL
Tucked into a SE 82nd strip mall, Ha & VL dishes out Vietnamese soup that transcends the more-familiar pho, and you'll eat what they tell you: Just a couple varieties …
Ned Ludd
The gimmick at this one-year-old Northeast restaurant is that everything is cooked in a wood-fired oven, except there’s nothing gimmicky about the meat pies (with …
Genoa Restaurant
This storied Italian spot rises from the ashes with the arrival of chef David Anderson, who serves up five-course stunners featuring complex, polished pastas and even …
Beast
It's a splurge, but Portland's most high-profile chef, James Beard finalist Naomi Pomeroy, wo-mans the kitchen at Beast, where each intimate, prix-fixe seating is like a …
Red Onion
Red Onion aspires to what every neighborhood Thai restaurant could be — if they weren’t dumbed down to American palates. Flavorful curries, appropriately …
Grüner Restaurant
The dearth of downtown dining hotspots gets some relief with the debut of Chris Israel's Alpine-influenced Gruner. Though the menu takes inspiration from the Black Forest …
Le Pigeon
Gabe Rucker’s East Burnside hole-in-the-wall has an open kitchen, a short menu, and a firm handle on how to make inventive but mostly accessible food. This is where …
Laurelhurst Market
At the forefront of Portland's now-famous carnivorous culinary scene, Laurelhurst Market's combination butchery counter, steakhouse, and sandwich stop ushered in an …
Jade Teahouse & Patisserie
This casual neighborhood lunch counter successfully borrows from several Asian influences — peeks of Vietnamese with meatball sandwiches and pho, Chinese with pork …
