Esquire magazine’s list of America’s best new restaurants for 2025 includes both a Portland restaurant and a New York City restaurant from a longtime Portland chef.
Published Monday, the magazine cast a wide net with its list of 33 new restaurants, honoring both the Indigenous- and Mexican-inspired Northeast Portland restaurant Javelina and chef Gregory Gourdet’s globe-trotting Manhattan bistro Maison Passerelle.
Of Javelina, the magazine wrote that chef Alexa Numkena-Anderson “understands the importance of radical joy,” with a menu that “educates and enthralls in equal measure.” Javelina is found at 4636 N.E. 42nd Ave.
Of Maison Passerelle, the magazine discovered a restaurant “navigating the whorling historical waters of France and French colonialism” with influences from the Caribbean, North Africa and Vietnam. Maison Passerelle is found at 1 Wall Street, New York City, inside luxe French department store Printemps.
Esquire has shown love to Portland before, most notably by ranking Gourdet’s Portland restaurant, Kann, as the best new restaurant in America in 2022. No Portland restaurants were included in the 2023 or 2024 editions. Meanwhile, this year’s list was not ranked.
Dining and Cooking