Bar + Food | Portland’s Happiest Hours
Add this to the growing list of reasons to visit (or relocate to) Portland, Ore.: the city’s food-focused happy hour tradition. While other towns — notably Seattle, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Charleston, S.C. — also serve cheap eats in the late afternoon, Portland has been doing it since the last recession. If you ask restaurant owners, they’ll tell you the back story: a state liquor law forbids businesses from promoting discounted alcohol, so it made sense to lure in diners with at-cost food. (Though this law has recently changed, $5 plates are more ubiquitous than ever.) And this being Portland, you’re more likely to find charcuterie plates or pig heart with quince jam on the menu than sliders and fries.
A few of our favorites:
Accanto The sister restaurant of Genoa has both a regular happy hour (3 to 6 p.m. every day) and a late-night one (9 p.m. to close on weekdays, 10 p.m. to close on weekends). Recent standouts include a perfectly dressed salad with fava beans, radishes and Parmesan ($5) and a mozzarella and preserved-tomato panini with arugula pesto served with homemade potato chips ($5). A la carte portions of cheese or charcuterie ($1.50) are generous and come with pickled vegetables and bread. Wash it all down with a Hopworks lager ($3.50) or a house-infused cocktail of the day ($5).
Clark Lewis (4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Mon.-Sat.) Located in the up-and-coming southeast industrial neighborhood, this restaurant arranges its plates by price: a ramekin of olives is $1, a plate of Grand Central bakery’s chewy bread with good butter and fleur de sel, $2. Three bucks will get you a heaping plate of spaghetti with pesto; add an ultra-fresh salad or arancini with pork sausage and lemon aioli for a few bucks more. With gimlets and house wine ringing in at $5, your check could easily come in under $12.
Wildwood (9 p.m. to close) Where else but Portland can you find a restaurant that serves locally sourced organic popcorn drizzled with truffle oil? (It hails from Ayers Creek, a farm in nearby Gaston.) For $2, this snack is yours. Two hungry people could easily be sated sharing the butter lettuce salad topped with spring onions and buttermilk blue cheese dressing ($5) and the grilled Cascade Natural beef hamburger with garlic confit ($7), served with hand-cut fries. House wines go for $5, well drinks are $4, and draft beers are $3. On Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout the summer, the chef Dustin Clark does a “garden grilling” on the BBQ from 4:30 to 6:30. Small plates, like grilled summer squash with basil pesto and crushed walnuts, apricot and mascarpone bruschetta with crispy proscuitto and oregano, go for $5.
Olympic Provisions (3 to 6 p.m. Mon.-Sat.). If you’ve already exhausted Clyde Common’s deservedly popular happy hour, it’s time to try “aperitivo” at its sister restaurant. Though Olympic Provisions is known primarily for its house-cured charcuterie, its veggie dishes are what stand out for their inventiveness and fresh-from-the-garden taste: a salad of roast summer squash with chickpeas, cherry tomatoes, olive relish and pine nuts ($6), for instance, or green beans topped with garlic, sherry, slivered almonds and ricotta ($5). If you’re really hungry, spring for the messy-but-worth-it pan bagnat on focaccia ($7). Aperitifs — Campari and soda, Aperol spritz — are in the $7 range.
Nostrana (9 p.m. to close) The “late-night” happy hour makes an ideal summer’s repast. Splurge on a glass of John Paul Cameron’s rosé (though the $5 house wine is always good), then order the charcuterie plate ($5), a few of Cathy Whim’s famed pizzas (margherita or marinara, a mere $5) and the addictive insalata Nostrana (radicchio with Parmesan, rosemary-sage croutons and a Caesar-style dressing). You will leave happy — guaranteed.
