best places to eat in portland

Portland is a great food city, and there are many culinary treasures to be found all over the place. While it is impossible to name every restaurant I wish existed in Portland, here are some of the coolest places to eat that act as a one-stop shop. Portland is a foodie’s paradise. From old school diners to fine dining restaurants, there are so many options. The only problem is that where should you go? You can waste hours searching around looking at Yelp reviews, or you can take my advice. After all, we’re talking about food — I’d trust somebody who eats as much as I do.

The best places to eat in Portland are located all over the city. From the east side to the west, there is a plethora of options for any and all food preferences.

The first place I would recommend is Rolf’s. Located in the Pearl District, this German-inspired restaurant offers a variety of dishes that will delight your taste buds and make you want to come back again and again! If you love Italian food, this next place should be on your list: Tabor Bread Co. This bakery serves up delicious sandwiches, salads, and pastries—all made fresh daily with local ingredients! For those who love Asian cuisine, you have to check out Pok Pok. This restaurant offers Thai street food and is known for their famous wings!

The best places to eat in Portland are a bit of a mixed bag. One of the most popular restaurants is Voodoo Doughnuts, which is located on Northwest 23rd Avenue. This is a great place for you to grab a quick bite or even just get something sweet to drink. If you’re looking for something more traditional, then you should head over to Portland City Grill at 1120 SW Fifth Avenue.

You can find many different types of cuisine here, including Asian, Mexican, vegetarian and vegan options. You’ll also find that Portland is one of the best places in the country when it comes to seafood restaurants. The city has several options available when it comes to fresh seafood dishes that will blow your mind!

top restaurants in portland

Gracie’s Apizza

Pizzaiolo Craig Melillo slings sourdough pies and top-notch ice cream out of this small St. Johns pizzeria, often selling out before the night ends. Tangy, char-dotted crusts support thin sheets of mortadella or house-pickled accoutrement, served alongside pints of flavors like amarena cherry or tahini chip. Melillo is an extremely talented guy, but also humble — he doesn’t make a big fuss about being noticed, which is why his food feels so special. Gracie’s is open for takeout, with outdoor dining in a shared patio space.

Bing Mi Food Cart

In the time since Jacky Ren took over this longstanding Portland food cart, it has reached new heights: The team at this Northwest Portland Chinese cart has mastered the formula for impeccable jianbing, suede-smooth crepes wrapped around slices of duck and sausage with the satisfying crunch of cucumber and cracker. The cart’s house-made “bing sauce” gives each bite a nice salty-sweetness, while the addition of zha cai provides a burst of tang to bring things together. Bing Mi is open for takeout, with onsite seating at the Nob Hill Food Carts pod.

St. Jack

Nothing feels as celebratory as a meal at St. Jack, where diners marvel at beautiful plates in a humming dining room, glasses of Champagne bubbling on tables indoors and out. Here, diners will find owner Aaron Barnett’s take on French cuisine, now aided by the mind of chef John Denison. The simple classics are done astoundingly well here: The restaurant’s knockout chicken liver mousse is velveteen and has a sweetness reminiscent of rich ice cream, and a simple plate of steak frites comes with an on-point shallot-red wine demi-glace and tangy bearnaise. But distinctive dishes like mushroom vol-au-vent topped with a bouquet of lettuces and nasturtium, or beef tartare with pickled beets and rye crumbs, are the ones that keep St. Jack at top-of-mind when thinking about special occasion restaurants. St. Jack is open for indoor and heated outdoor dining; reservations are recommended.

Ringside Steakhouse

West-side institution Ringside is Portland’s essential steakhouse, serving slabs of beef and James Beard’s beloved onion rings since 1944. Its cozy dining room — replete with fireplaces, burgundy booths, and white tablecloths — screams steakhouse, and the menu echoes the same: Diners start with prawn cocktail or an iceberg wedge, maybe a bowl of French onion soup encrusted with Gruyere. Dry-aged rib-eyes or buttery filet mignon sit next to a gargantuan pile of garlic mashed potatoes, drenched in bearnaise or lavish foie gras butter. Prime rib comes with the customary Yorkshire pudding and fresh horseradish, perhaps with a decadent addition of lobster mashed potatoes. But the real draw of Ringside is likely its roster of career servers — the restaurant is home to the city’s finest service, from the first Old Fashioned to the last glass of pinot. It’s open for indoor and outdoor dining, plus takeout.

Toki Restaurant

When the Han Oak team opened Toki on Portland’s west side, they started small, with a few fun, casual snacks: variations on Korean fried chicken, a dry-aged beef cheeseburger sealed inside a steamed bun, breakfast sandwiches stacked with koji-cured pork belly. Past its first anniversary, however, Toki has grown into a restaurant that shows off the wide range of talent found within the kitchen. All of the aforementioned dishes remain on the menu, but they’re joined by elegant house-made noodle dishes and a gorgeous scallop juk, little seared nuggets of shellfish dotted with amber trout roe. Toki has taken the magic of Han Oak and transformed it into something fitting the current dining climate — you can pop in for takeout fried chicken, or sit down to a full-on tasting menu. The restaurant is open for takeout, delivery, and dine-in service, with proof of vaccination.

unique eats in portland

Mucca Osteria

Mucca harkens back to an era of dining — and a caliber of service — hard to find in contemporary Portland, where servers in ties and vests refill water glasses after a sip or two, where dishes meant to be shared are split and plated per person without a second thought, where a bowl of warm focaccia lands on the table just a few moments after diners place their orders. But service is nothing if the food can’t deliver, and Mucca delivers in spades: Ribbons of 500-day prosciutto di Parma snugly encase a mound of burrata, a wild-tasting quail leans on a crisp polenta cake and a sprinkle of smoked paprika olive oil powder, a seared scallop sitting on a swipe of Parmesan fondue plays pedestal to a dollop of caramelized shallots and garlic blossoms. The restaurant is open for indoor and outdoor dining.

Republica

It’s not just that República makes the city’s finest quesadilla, tri-colored masa folded over salty-stretchy quesillo with a side of nutty salsa macha. It’s not just that República’s tasting menu involves ingenious dishes like chanterelle adobo risotto with refried and nixtamalized beans. It’s not just that each server explains the ideation, culinary lineage, and historical context for each dish. It’s that República truly feels like a team effort, creative culinary minds coming up with a full day’s worth of excellence — from morning conchas to evening moles. It’s open indoor and outdoor dining for dinner.

Murata Restaurant

When identifying Portland’s “essential” restaurants, it seems only fitting to include Murata, the stalwart Japanese restaurant downtown. Since 1988, Portlanders have stepped into its tatami room for dinners of miso soup, tonkatsu, and broiled mackerel, pots of soothing zosui filled with ribbons of egg, chirashi adorned with generous slices of salmon and sweet scallop. Murata is old-school in the best way, a style of Japanese restaurant becoming rarer and rarer with time; sitting in its dining room, mulling over crispy tempura or chicken teriyaki, induces a reinvigorating nostalgia hard to find elsewhere. Murata is open for onsite dining and takeout.

Lovely’s Fifty Fifty

In a North Mississippi pizza cafe that feels casual but intimate, pizzaiola Sarah Minnick embraces paradoxes beautifully: She took something brimming with childhood charm — pizza and ice cream — and gave it a high-end twist. Seasonally rotating pizzas are a garden of edible flowers and mushrooms, atop an airy-but-sturdy pizza dough made with Oregon whole grains. If someone is defining Portland’s distinct pizza style, it’s Minnick. She takes pre-orders for pizzas, with instructions available via her Instagram; the restaurant is also open for dine-in.

Casa Zoraya

Since Zoraya Zambrano and her children, Gary and Gloria Marmanillo, opened Casa Zoraya back in 2018, this Peruvian spot has been Piedmont’s under-the-radar destination restaurant: Ceviches land at the table like a work of art, fried calamari adding crunch to a bed of fresh seasonal seafood tossed with a summery leche de tigre. Arroz Chaufa, a Peruvian fried rice dish, gets an upgrade with a passionfruit reduction, which adds dose of acid and sweetness. And the pisco sours feel like they’re shipped straight from Lima, best sipped on Casa Zoraya’s back patio. The restaurant is open for indoor dining, outdoor dining, and takeout.