Amid dark times, Portland restaurants delivered more than their share of joy this year. Perhaps that’s why locals named the food scene as a primary reason for staying in town in a March survey, behind only nature and the weather. Few things make us more optimistic about the city’s future than discovering a world-class restaurant in our own backyard.
Looking back on a year’s worth of great meals, some of the best things we ate came from surprising locales: cafes and food carts, dive bars and bakeries and pop-ups (so many pop-ups). Sure, Portland has never had much patience for stuffy fine dining, but that seems doubly true today, when rising food costs, nonexistent investment funds and aggressive immigration enforcement have disrupted the food system, making opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant more difficult than ever. Yet through it all, the Portland dining scene remains the best in the Northwest, with chefs and service professsionals continuing to inspire with creativity and passion.
This guide, drawn from visits to dozens of new Portland restaurants between 2024 and 2025, runs the gamut from a tasting menu restaurant with some of the most ambitious service in Portland history to a friendly neighborhood dive bar with a $5 hot dog, and everything in between. The thread connecting these 10 restaurants is joy, wonder and a sense that welcoming hospitality is taken as seriously as the food.
If you like to eat well, no matter the surroundings, this list is is for you.
Starter snacks at Astera, the vegan fine-dining restaurant of billionaire dreams. Vickie Connor | The Oregonian
Vegan fine dining in Buckman ($$$$)
For a vegan dining capital like Portland, where so many people shun not just meat but animal products of all stripes, a higher-end restaurant serving plant-based food is almost an inevitability. And for nearly two decades, Aaron Adams has been the chef behind those restaurants, maturing through the years from the midscale Italian spot Portobello to the locavore chef’s counter Farm Spirit.
Now it’s Astera, where a homey dining serves as the setting for some of the most polished service Portland has ever seen. Here, hushed waiters in dapper suits deliver ovals of inky black seaweed caviar, then remove each puck-sized pedestal from every spot at the table simultaneously. A starting round of Michelin-level snacks might include petite meringues or two-bite tartlets topped with nasturtiums from Adams’ working garden. For the main, Astera delivers meaty maitake mushrooms draped over a kohlrabi purée and primped with a pouf of crispy kale where omnivore tasting menus lean on A5 wagyu.
Plant-based tasting menus aimed at the .01% made plenty of headlines this summer, with the three-Michelin-starred Paris restaurant Arpege dropping most animal products, just before New York City’s similarly recognized Eleven Madison Park put meat back on its own tasting menu. Astera is hundreds of dollars less expensive per person than those two. And it has another thing going for it: Unlike the billionaire playpens in Paris and New York, it’s a restaurant where you might actually be inclined to return.
Details: Astera opens from 5 to 9 p.m. Thursday-Sunday at 1407 S.E. Belmont St., 503-610-8076, asterapdx.com. Tasting menu prices start at $115 and rise to $165 for more courses eaten at the chef’s counter.
Recommended: Astera’s menu changes frequently, but expect the most memorable dishes to arrive at the beginning and the end.
Michael Russell’s review: Portland’s Astera, the vegan restaurant of billionaire dreams
1/7
Balong Panaderia
Filipino cafe-bakery in Powellhurst-Gilbert ($)
Justin Dauz’ history with the breakfast sandwich dates back more than a decade, to his time coddling eggs and frying duck fat hash browns at Los Angeles’ smash hit Eggslut.
With Balong, Dauz brings some of that Los Angeles energy — and a bit of nostalgia for the Filipino bakeries of his Bay Area youth — to Portland’s Jade District, bringing new life to the back half of Fubonn Shopping Center. Head past the racks of flowy dresses and noisy arcade games to find this the cafe-bakery, which opened in April with calamansi-strawberry bars, Cinnabon-inspired coffee rolls and potato pavé-style hash browns.
There are handsome breakfast plates and barbecue chicken melts. But if you’re here, it’s probably for the breakfast sandwiches, each with a fried egg, melted cheese and a choice of bacon or house longanisa sausage on a subtly sweet house-baked pan de sal roll. They’re good as they come. Better with an extra smear of roasted tomato aioli. And best with a side of those unfathomably crunchy hash browns.
Details: Balong opens from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday at 2850 S.E. 82nd Ave., #27, 971-319-4124, eatbalong.com.
Recommended: Hash browns, breakfast sandwiches, the breakfast plate, biscuits and gravy, and a pastry or two with coffee to start.
Michael Russell’s review: Balong makes one of Portland’s best breakfast sandwiches. And that’s not all
Go here next: Chef Vince Nguyen doubled down on his Berlu Bakery pop-up this year, opening a standalone bakery (661 S.E. Belmont St.) with modern Vietnamese pastries given surprising bolts of flavor, from lime leaf to subtle durian, plus one seriously comforting meatball soup.
Clockwise from top left: Alexandra Williams, Daniel Green and Chris Leimena prep pizzas in what might be Portland’s most famous oven.Michael Russell | The OregonianBauman’s on Oak
Pizza and cider bar in Buckman ($$)
I remember the day I fell in love with this unassuming cider bar. The sun was shining, and chef Daniel Green was making pizzas in a hulking oven parked on Bauman’s secluded side patio: Piping hot pies topped with house-cured pancetta and juicy slices of peach. A veritable crab melt of a pizza with big mounds of Dungeness sinking slowly into pools of hand-pulled stracciatella cheese.
Even in a town as rich with pizza as Portland, these pies stood out. The only problem? These pizza pop-ups only happened once a month.
Eventually, I grew to appreciate the subtle pleasures of the everyday menu: the sourdough bread, the pork schnitzel, the Dungeness crab roll made on a perfect split-top potato roll, baked in house. Green, I learned, started his career as a baker. No surprise there. Bread was the through line between all my favorite dishes.
These days, Green is focused on getting his own cider label off the ground, though he still has a hand in Bauman’s kitchen. Christine Walter’s award-winning ciders remain as exceptional as ever. Day-to-day, chef Greg Redfield oversees a shorter menu of snacks, salads and more, with one added bonus — pizza is now served whenever the taproom is open.
Details: Bauman’s on Oak opens from 4 to 9 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday and 2 to 9 p.m. Friday-Saturday at 930 S.E. Oak St., baumanscider.com.
Recommended: Pizza, cider and (should it return) the crab roll.
Michael Russell’s review: At Bauman’s on Oak, Portland gets another world-class pizzeria
Vichy-style carrots glazed in butter and honey, tripled-fried Kennebec potato French fries and a NY strip steak au poivre at L’Echelle. Vickie Connor | The Oregonian
L’Echelle
French bistro in Richmond ($$$)
This neighborhood bistro was conceived as chef Naomi Pomeroy’s return to restaurants five years after closing her influential Beast. But after the chef’s tragic death last year, the project was carried to the finish line by her business partner, Luke Dirks, and longtime lieutenant and friend, Mika Paredes.
Paredes, a thoughtful, talented chef in her own right, takes her biggest swings with the starters: œufs mayo with smooth aioli and spoonfuls of glistening salmon roe, two silver slivers of white anchovy draped across like zippers; cubes of deftly fried chickpea panisse reimagined with comté and sauce Algérienne, a harissa mayo that sounds fancy, but is actually a squeeze-bottle option at French kebab shops.
You could start with a Vesper glacée and some oysters on the half shell. Or a cool glass of Aligoté with some of Portland’s best French fries. There’s no requirement to build a full meal. Early in the evening, when our 2025 Restaurant of the Year seems to be the busiest, you might spy toddlers in the window trying their first bites of panisse. Hang out late enough, and it morphs into a hip neighborhood wine bar. Though we can’t know precisely what L’Echelle would have become had Pomeroy survived, it’s clear the bistro is a worthy tribute to her legacy.
Details: L’Echelle serves dinner from 5 to 10 p.m. daily at 4537 S.E. Division St., no phone, lechellepdx.com.
Recommended: Panisse, œufs mayo, French onion soup, the Vichy carrots, a steak au poivre with a side of fries, ganache cake (or a cone from Cornet, Paredes’ frozen custard shop next door).
Michael Russell’s review: At new bistro L’Echelle, a tribute to Naomi Pomeroy looks a lot like Portland’s best new restaurant
Butternut squash and brown butter ravioli with chanterelles at Fantino. Beth Nakamura | The Oregonian
Fantino
Cozy Italian in Hosford-Abernethy ($$$)
Fantino is Italian for “jockey,” which explains the stable’s worth of horse paintings on the wall, the dining room decor like a small-scale take on the impossible-to-get-into Manhattan restaurant Polo Bar.
Credit to Garrett McAleese, the Kells Irish Pub scion, for crafting an atmosphere to match the ambition implicit in that design choice. Whether by word of mouth or social media buzz, the pony-sized restaurant seems to have no problem filling its seats each night, despite little media attention and an opening coincided with Portland’s endless sea of new Italian restaurants.
Aside from a few Spanish starters, the menu mostly leans Italian, with seasonal salads, simple pastas and mains including a chicken breast Milanese and fat mussels with chorizo in a decadent Calabrian chile butter. In winter, you could do worse than saddling up to the bar for a bowl of conchiglie alla vodka or a nicely seared culotte steak dragged through au poivre sauce.
And Fantino shines even brighter in summer. A September meal on the restaurant’s small patio featured refreshing spritzes, bright cucumber-tomato salads, patio umbrellas rearranged to block the setting sun and a whole branzino in brown butter deboned tableside by McAleese himself — Amalfi coast vibes without the travel costs.
Details: Fantino opens from 5 to 9:30 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday and 5 to 10:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday at 2314 S.E. Division St., fantinopdx.com.
Recommended: Vodka sauce pasta and a steak in winter, bucatini al limone and a spritz in summer.
Michael Russell’s review: Portland has a shocking number of new Italian restaurants. Here’s what we learned after trying them all
Go here next: Waitlisted at Fantino? Head straight to Maglia Rosa (3010 S.E. Division St.), another new Italian restaurant just up the road. The crowds have yet to descend here, but one bite of the butternut squash ravioli or huckleberry panna cotta lets you know chef-owner Troy MacLarty and pastry chef Mandy Groom are bringing their A games.
Jerry’s Tavern in Northwest Portland serves cold drinks, hot wings, fresh burgers and more, surrounded by wood-paneled walls covered in Midwestern sports memorabilia. Sean Meagher/The OregonianJerry’s Tavern
Midwestern dive bar in Northwest ($)
Find the Old Style beer sign, swing open the door and slide past the little bumper pool table to join the nightly party at this Midwestern dive. Tucked between the breweries and strip clubs of industrial Northwest Portland, its sports and beer memorabilia stacked to the ceiling, Jerry’s Tavern manages to feel like it’s been around since this neighborhood hosted the Lewis and Clark Exposition back in 1905, despite only opening last year.
Often busy, rarely overcrowded (unless the Bears and Packers are playing), with unerringly friendly service, the cozy bar only offers a dozen dishes — and none of them are pizza, the item that put owner Jerry Benedetto on the map five years ago. Then again, the little display menus at each high-top table and lumpy red booth are the bar-food equivalent of a greatest hits album: all hits, no skips.
That starts with the best wings in Portland: big but not flabby, fried until the edges go crispy, drenched in a pitch-perfect Buffalo sauce. It might end there, too. But here come the carnitas, rich enough to overcome their pale (if, appropriately) store-bought tortillas. Even if you’ve never stepped foot in Wisconsin, a juicy meatloaf sandwich with a side of fried cheese curds might make you homesick for the Midwest. Whether you pair it with a High Life, a loaded Bloody Mary or a Wisconsin Old Fashioned is entirely up to you.
Details: Jerry’s Tavern opens from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday and 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday at 3010 N.W. Nicolai St., 971-867-2979.
Recommended: The wings, first and foremost, though the meatloaf sandwich, fried cheese curds and carnitas tacos are no slouch either.
Go here next: You’ll probably hear Third Coast Hot Dogs (2227 S.E. Division St.) before you see it: an engine roaring to life, a candy orange pickup peeling out from the parking lot. Head inside for good times, affordable drinks and owner Sage Houser’s personal take on hot dogs — including one topped with Oaxacan mole and crushed Takis.
Mussels in a North African-spiced escabeche, golden French fries and a non-alcoholic spritz at Katy Jane’s Oyster Bar.Michael Russell | The OregonianKaty Jane’s Oyster Bar
Seafood-focused bistro in Tabor ($$$)
Katy Jane’s, the new casual new sister restaurant to Coquine, provides a powerful reason to let someone else do the shucking. Oysters here — the centerpiece of a seafood-focused bistro menu — are just about perfect: the perfect size, the perfect salinity, the perfect shuck, the perfect everything.
What else would we expect from Katy (Jane) Millard? As we’ve known for some time, the Coquine co-owner, arguably Portland’s most technically skilled chef, who honed her talents in France then proved herself in San Francisco, doesn’t deal in half measures. If there’s a crawfish dip on her menu, it’s going to be the Platonic ideal of crawfish dips — decadent, nicely spiced, properly chewy.
Depending on when you visit, you might find plump cider-braised mussels braised, a deconstructed crab Louie salad, the famous Coquine chicken and a lineup of ice-cold martinis (the Moon Goddess, with Hendricks gin, vermouth and spiced orange bitters, is my favorite).
Details: Katy Jane’s Oyster Bar opens from 5 to 8 p.m. Monday-Saturday at 6833 S.E. Belmont St., 503-477-9582, coquinepdx.com/market.
Recommended: Here is where we try not to list the entire menu — the oysters and dips and onion bread with smoked trout roe and martinis — and suggest leaving room for a few Coquine cookies to go.
Michael Russell’s review: Coquine opened an oyster bar. It’s fantastic
1/11
Kau Kau brings a taste of Oahu to Portland
Kau Kau
Plate lunch spot in Vernon ($$)
You might have heard Kau Kau described as an “elevated” Hawaiian restaurant thanks to the time owners Brandon and Tracee Hirahara spent at top Portland restaurants Eem and Langbaan. But the term is misleading. Kau Kau isn’t some James Beard Award-baiting take on modern Hawaiian food. And it certainly isn’t an expense account chophouse with seared ahi steaks and hula pie for dessert.
Instead, the Hiraharas draw inspiration from Oahu’s chain diners, drive-ins and mom-and-pop cafes — places many tourists never tread. If the menu is “elevated,” it’s because of the quality of the ingredients the married chefs choose and the technique they employ: the premium Skuna Bay salmon in the lomi-lomi and poke bowls, the diced potatoes hiding in the mac salad. Still, this is local food with locals in mind.
Kau Kau’s flavors are more austere than many area Hawaiian restaurants, which is another way of saying they take more time and patience to appreciate. But try the chicken katsu curry, with its crispy slices of panko-fried chicken draped across a pool of silky brown curry, small cubes of carrot and potato hiding underneath like sunken treasures, the usual rice and mac salad sides joined here by subtly sweet lotus root and other Japanese-style pickles.
Details: Kau Kau opens from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday-Tuesday at 2026 N.E. Alberta St., 503-970-1577, kaukaupdx.com.
Recommended: Spam musubi, garlic chicken, chicken (or tofu) katsu curry, lau lau, misoyaki butterfish, salmon poke bowls, butter mochi.
Michael Russell’s review: Kau Kau brings an unheralded taste of Hawaii to the mainland.
Clams in a broth redolent of caramelized pineapple at The Paper Bridge.Michael Russell | The OregonianThe Paper Bridge
Northern Vietnamese in Buckman ($$)
Clams, specifically steamer clams, even spicy steamer clams, don’t tend to stick around long when my seafood-loving daughters are around.
So beyond enjoying the fried crab rolls, the indulgent beef phở and the adorable caddy of pâte-stuffed mini baguettes, my lunches at The Paper Bridge often include the added luxury of a bowl of clams eaten (mostly) by myself.
Like seemingly everything at this one-of-a-kind Northern Vietnamese restaurant, these are no ordinary clams. Instead, co-owners Quynh Nguyen and chef Carlo Reinardy draw inspiration from Vietnam’s stunning, seafood-rich Quảng Ninh province, steaming Manila clams in a sweet, salty, viscous broth of pineapple, chili and lemongrass. Served with a Vietnamese fritter and sesame rice cracker for dipping, it sounds like it shouldn’t come together, but it does. Better yet, it’s all mine.
Details: The Paper Bridge opens from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4-9 p.m. Thursday-Monday at 828 S.E. Ash St., 503-265-8105, thepaperbridgepdx.com.
Recommended: Golden Dungeness crab spring rolls, house-made noodles, Quang Ninh-style clams, imported Vietnamese tea.
Spicy miso ramen (clockwise from top left), crispy gau gee, shio al tartufo ramen, berry soda, spicy garlicky cucumbers and a bento juice box cocktail at Toya Ramen & Bar. Sean Meagher | The Oregonian
Toya Ramen
Ramen shop in Buckman ($$)
Back in 2020, when then-Eem chef Colin Yoshimoto first dabbled with making ramen — ordered online, delivered on a friend’s scooter, carefully reheated at home — I figured he would end up opening some kind of ramen chef’s counter, with dim lighting and bowls starting at $20.
Turns out, the restaurant Yoshimoto opened last year with Kevin Trinh, aka Damian Lillard’s private chef, is far more casual, a corner bar on the ground floor of a bunker-like building, its big windows overlooking local landmarks Ota Tofu and The Slammer Tavern.
Toya serves two types of house-made noodles, one thin, the other thick and wavy, alongside two types of chicken broth, each starting with mature hens that add extra depth of flavor and produce a gorgeous golden fat. There are several excellent shoyu variations, a truffled shio, a (vegan) spicy miso, a Thai-inspired tom yum and a “carbonaramen” leaning into Japanese-Italian fusion.
You’re here for Portland’s best ramen, but you could just as easily treat Toya as a tapas bar, dropping by for a tasty cocktail and some ceviche, spicy cucumbers or deep-fried tofu from the nearly 115-year-old factory across the street.
Details: Toya Ramen & Bar opens from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday-Sunday, 5 to 9:30 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, and 5 p.m. to midnight Friday-Saturday at 803 S.E. Stark St., 971-420-9672, toyaramen.com.
Recommended: Ramen, of course, but also ceviche, spicy cucumbers, soy-garlic glazed fried tofu, and pork katsu, which always seem to find a place at my table, preferably alongside a juicy bento box cocktail.
Michael Russell’s review: Toya, Portland’s best ramen shop, opened last year. Where are the crowds?
— Michael Russell
Dining and Cooking