Sunday Sauce was just one of many Italian restaurants that opened in 2025.
2025 was an odd year for Portland restaurant openings. While we had the usual array of new bistros, cafés, and bars, there was no clear, singular standout like 2022’s Kann or 2020’s República. Many of these spots existed as pop-ups before they settled into permanent housing, while a few others followed the classic Portland narrative of food-cart-turned-brick-and-mortar. And a thread of comfort wove through these openings—rather than intricate tasting menus or experimental cocktail bars, we got homey cuisine and family recipes. We twirled pasta at new Italian spots, devoured roast chicken at LaVerne’s and Bar Nouveau, and sipped pandan cocktails at Bone Sine and After Ours. Here are the biggest restaurant openings of 2025.
A Whole Bunch of Italian Restaurants
Opened: All year long
Let’s address the marinara-drenched elephant in the candlelit room: 2025 was the Year of Red Sauce. We started early, with the February opening of Montelupo’s Italian American spin-off, Monty’s Red Sauce, and never slowed down as spots like Hey Luigi, Maglia Rosa, Fantino, Sunday Sauce, Dimo’s Italian Specialties, and many others opened throughout the year. Even the newest Jewish deli has Italian touches (more on that below). The latest: Pomalo Bar on North Lombard, which combines Italian food and Southern cuisine with dishes like meatballs in Creole cream sauce and crawfish étoufée with garlic bread. It’s hard to say what drove this explosion of pasta shops and markets, but with all the anxieties and pains plaguing 2025, maybe Portlanders are just in need of serious comfort food. What’s better to soothe a troubled soul than a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs or a hearty eggplant sandwich? A Negroni couldn’t hurt, either.
Javelina brings Indigenous dining to the Cully neighborhood.
Opened: January (And then reopened in april)
Chef Alexa Numkena-Anderson and her husband and business partner, Nicholas Numkena-Anderson, introduced Javelina to Portland diners in 2023. Popping up at spaces like Morchella and Street Disco, Javelina centered fry bread on a menu built around postcolonial Indigenous dining and Southwest cuisine. Sonoran hot dogs, “NDN” tacos, and fry bread burgers were joined by a few dishes inspired by precolonial eating, like squash stuffed with huckleberries. Now with a brick-and-mortar in Cully, their vision is fully realized. At lunch, fry bread burgers hit the tables next to wild rice bowls with braised elk or Tribal-caught salmon. Dinners include rabbit and rattlesnake–stuffed peppers, bison steaks, elk pot pie, and Hopi blue corn bread. Inisha, the space’s occasional reservation-only prix fixe dinner experience, digs even deeper into precolonialism, omitting any elements not native to Turtle Island. Most ingredients are sourced from Indigenous suppliers, and during the meal Nicholas Numkena-Anderson takes guests through the history of each dish while servers pour tisanes made with local herbs and fruits.
Spam musubi and garlic chicken are two of Kau Kau’s starring dishes.
Opened: March
Kau Kau began life as a pop-up before settling into its home on NE Alberta. In a cozy, stone-walled counter shop, founders Brandon and Tracee Hirahara serve Hawaiian cuisine at a level Portland hasn’t seen before. The hits are all here: kalua pig, garlic chicken, meat jun, Spam musubi, and the all-important Hawaiian mac salad. The Hiraharas execute it with precision and heart, making pepper water from chiles shipped from their home on Oahu and sourcing from top purveyors for their loco moco and salmon poke. The result: Portland’s top spot for Hawaiian comfort food.
Opened: April
There was national buzz when Bon Appétit darling Molly Baz announced she would be opening a vegan fast-food restaurant in Portland. Turns out, she was partnering with former Nike worker and local Matt Plitch, who had envisioned meat- and dairy-free alternatives to McDonald’s. The dream is a worldwide network of Face Plants, but for now you’ll have to visit Swan Island to sample the burgers, fries, and milkshakes. Though the location is inconvenient for some commuters, the years of research that Plitch and Baz did makes it worth the trip for some of Portland’s best vegan burgers, especially for the price point and speedy service.
Mika Paredes and Luke Dirks uphold Naomi Pomeroy’s legacy at L’Échelle.
Opened: May
Has Portland ever had a more anticipated or bittersweet restaurant opening? It had been less than a year since its founding chef, the legendary Naomi Pomeroy, had died in a tragic river accident that L’Échelle opened its doors on SE Division. Helmed by her longtime collaborators Mika Paredes and Luke Dirks, L’Échelle honors Pomeroy’s legacy while establishing itself as one of the city’s best new French(ish) restaurants. Bistro classics define the experience: steak au poivre, French onion soup, Parisienne gnocchi, frisée Lyonnaise. Lush cocktails and vibrant European and Oregon wines round out the experience. It all goes down in the former Woodsman Tavern space, now brighter and cheerier. Though a current of melancholy may forever run through L’Échelle, there’s also a spirit of persistence, of tenacity—one that feels distinctly, meaningfully Portland.
More than just breakfast sandwiches, Balong serves sweet and savory pastries.
Opened: May
It can be tricky to even find Balong, the killer new Filipino café. It’s tucked down a back hallway of Fubonn Shopping Center on 82nd, past a few empty storefronts and the market. But it’s worth the mild confusion to find one of Portland’s best breakfast sandwiches. Founder Justin Dauz started Balong as—you guessed it—a pop-up before he secured this new space. Dauz makes it all himself: the spongy, fluffy pan de sal; the peppery, garlicky longanisa sausage (and its exceptional vegan variant); the sundried tomato aioli smeared onto each sandwich. The breakfast sandwiches are so good as to almost overshadow the gorgeously crispy hashbrowns—a necessary addition to a Balong breakfast.
Opened: June
Portland has never been a bastion of Balkan cooking, which makes Alma’s arrival last summer all the more welcome. Chef Vedran Jordan grew up in Sarajevo, Bosnia, before he immigrated to the US as a refugee at age 12. He brings his family recipes to this small-plates restaurant on NE Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, serving lamb kababs, lentil soups, kefir-marinated chicken wings, smelt fish and chips, and sides like baba ghanoush and kajmak—a kind of Balkan clotted cream. Cocktails are made with rakia—a family of fruit brandy—and even wines are imported from the Balkans.
It’s always a party at LaVerne’s.
Opened: September
Somehow, LaVerne’s slipped into the Woodlawn neighborhood like it had been there for years. It’s partially due to the retro decor, with leather booths tucked against the exposed brick walls and bar stools illuminated by warm lighting. But it’s more so the vibes, always a raucous party, regulars greeted by name as they pull up a stool. It’s decidedly a bar, and not one that’s too fancy—more of a reliable neighborhood haunt. You can find cheap beer and a whiskey or a well-built mini martini. But the food is the biggest draw, especially its flagship dish: a deliciously simple rotisserie chicken, served with a make-your-own tacos setup of tortillas, beans, and slaw.
Vegetables are the star of the show at Bar Nouveau.
Opened: October
No prizes for guessing how chef Althea Grey Potter first conceptualized her new St. Johns eatery: It was a pop-up. Her springtime residency at Gracie’s Apizza reintroduced Portlanders to her unique style after her years-long hiatus from the restaurant world—guests booked weeks in advance to try her gribiche deviled eggs, roasted carrots with garlic zhoug, and towering parfaits. Since opening in fall, the permanent Bar Nouveau has carried forward that unique take on French and Pacific Northwest dining. Vegetables take center stage across the menu, which marries modern innovation with elements of late-twentieth-century farm-to-table movements. Grey Potter pipes flowers of chicken liver mousse onto rye cookies, tops deviled eggs with cornichons, builds gorgeous salads with produce from Sauvie Island, and braises beef cheeks with black garlic. Throughout it all, her business partner and collaborator Elizabeth Singer stirs boulevardiers and pours European wines.
Lil’ BBQ elevates Portland’s nascent barbecue scene.
Opened: October
While certainly not reaching the smoky heights of Austin or Kansas City, Portland is starting to come into its own as a barbecue city. That’s been greatly helped by the arrival of Lil BBQ this past fall. An offshoot of the celebrated, Michelin-starred La BBQ in Austin, Lil’ BBQ was brought to town by pitmaster Ben Vaughan. Rather than going through the rigmarole of finding a location and training staff, Vaughan opened his smokehouse in the kitchen of Woodlawn cocktail bar Tough Luck. Alongside a juiced-up cocktail menu of BBQ-friendly rum and tequila drinks, visitors can find smoked brisket, ribs, sausage, and pulled pork, plus plenty of sides and sandwiches. The surprise hit? According to Vaughan, it’s the chicken thighs bringing in the most repeat visits.
Jewish and Italian traditions meet at Dream Deli.
Opened: November
One area that Portland has long been lacking in is a proper Jewish deli. We have had a few, scattered throughout town, but with the loss of spots like Kornblatt’s and Kenny & Zuke’s we’re down to just a handful—and one of those is vegan, so no (real) pastrami on rye there. Enter Dream Deli, from couple John Bissell and Jessie Levine. Now open on SE Division, Dream Deli covers the hits, but with its own style, one that draws just as much from (surprise!) Italian heritage as Jewish. Find corned brisket on rye, whitefish salad melts, matzo ball soup with Italian meatballs, Reuben knish, and rugelach. Just about everything, down to the bread, is made in-house.
Dining and Cooking