Where to Eat in January: Lulu/Jarana, Montelupo, Fortune BBQ, and More

Montelupo Italian Market, Northeast Glisan’s fast-casual red-sauce concept serving a concise but exciting menu of fresh pastas and salads, is the perfect neighborhood restaurant. By day, the space serves coffee, quiche, and a rotating menu of housemade pastries alongside their ever-growing market, shelves stocked with pantry goods, pastas, sauces, wine, and olive oil. By night, the market remains, with the kitchen switching over to its nighttime menu, an assemblage of salads and starters like burrata with frisee and bacon lardons and a duck confit grain salad, before heading into a robust pasta menu. Several of the mains will look familiar to any long-time Portlanders who ate at Adam Berger’s former 28th Avenue Italian restaurant Tabla, like the classic tajarin tossed in truffle butter beneath “lots of Parm” as well as seasonal spins like a cozy pasta e fagioli, and spaghetti with lamb meatballs and brussels sprouts.

A new 82nd Avenue noodle house has been taking over social media lately. A tiny storefront across the street from Hong Phat Food Center, Fortune BBQ specializes in Chinese barbecue — lacquered roast duck; thick, crispy sides of roast pork; glistening char siu pork; chunky, roasted ham hocks; steamed chicken, and more — served by the pound, with rice, over noodles, or in soup. Elsewhere on the menu, find a long list of noodle soups with your choice of noodle (don’t forget the shrimp-studded dumplings!), congee, and dry noodle dishes served with veggies. Make sure to order extra BBQ to bring home!

Call 503-265-8379, or find more info here.

A brand-new brewery and restaurant from husband-wife duo Doug Adams (Bullard, “Top Chef”) and Whitney Burnside (Pelican Brewing, 10 Barrel), Grand Fir Brewing combines the team’s passions into one easy-to-love spot. The beer, Burnside’s realm, runs the gamut from light (like the Tack Shack East Texas Lager) to the hoppy and heavy (find an IIIPA-Grains of Wrath collab and a warming chocolate stout). Food, Adams’ specialty, leans heavily on European pub and American bar food culture, with dishes like smoked wings, crispy Alpine potatoes with raclette beer cheese, Frito pie (that’ll be Adams’ Texas upbringing showing), alongside a burger, fried chicken, and veg-friendly entrees.

Find more info here.

Glitzy and celebration-oriented, this pan-Asian restaurant from Miami-trained chef Rodrigo Ochoa, Sweet Creature’s Gabriella Martinez, and Chelo’s Luna Contreras opened this winter in the Pearl District’s former Bluehour space. The gorgeous space — decked out in Nelson bubble lamps and an almost true-to-size cherry blossom tree — is among the most explicitly glamorous restaurants in Portland. Here, steak tartare arrives under freshly shaved black truffle; a trio of caviars — from Siberian Osetra to Imperial Gold — comes paired with an array of latkes, blinis, and toppings to mix-and-match; A5 wagyu is served on a hot stone, in a katsu sando, or smoked and layered with uni and caviar atop a smidgen of rice; and a long list of maki and cold dishes draw inspiration from Japanese and Korean flavors. Desserts, from Martinez, will look familiar to those who used to frequent her whimsical vegan ice cream taco spot — think: dishes like cheesecake bingsu with berry compote, matcha mille-feuille with red bean mascarpone, and sushi ice cream.

Call 503-841-6406 for reservations.

Fans of Manny Lopez, the headlining chef at once-beloved Angel Food & Fun in Cully, rejoice. He’s back on the food scene with a restaurant of his own. At the end of 2022, Lopez and his wife Suny Parra Castillo opened Ki’ikibáa along Northeast 82nd Avenue with a menu of many of the same Yucatecan stunners that drew fans a decade ago to the Cully shop. Find panuchos, the crispy, cupped tortillas filled with pureed black beans and choice of meat (the cochinita pibil is among the best in town); the less-seen relleno negro, a hard-boiled egg-stuffed pork ball served with shredded turkey in a jet-black broth; a fantastic burrito, griddled crisp and wrapped in a layer of cheese; along with daily changing specials, tamales, salbutes, and more. We’ve missed Lopez’ food so much we’re going ASAP.

No reservations.

This Southeast Grand Avenue cocktail bar brings Nikkei cuisine — combining Peruvian ingredients with Japanese technique — to Portland. The Jekyll and Hyde space is separated into Jarana — helmed by former Paiche tour-de-force Gary Marmanillo (Paiche, Casa Zoraya) and Ryley Eckersley (Quaintrelle) — and Lulu, the cocktail side, pairing tasty drinks with the kitchen’s revolving, global menu (before Jarana, the menu focused on Vietnamese dishes and fried chicken from the crews at Matta and Jojo). Dishes currently look like veggie and chicken empanadas; oysters with passion fruit and trout roe; catch-of-the-day ceviche filled out with shrimp and fried calamari; saltado (both vegetarian and not); and a chicken katsu bowl. To best complement the new menu, Lulu will be adding a pisco sour, more Japanese ingredients, and a short natural wine menu.

I know, I know. A dessert destination doesn’t fall in line with the typical “New Year’s diet renewal” that’s come to be associated with January, but it’s been a colder-than-usual winter and we deserve it! Papa Haydn, Portland’s longstanding dessert spot, has been baking treats for the city for nearly 50 years. With locations on both sides of the river, this date-night destination is accessible wherever you are. Find treats like cheesecakes, panna cottas, and patisserie, alongside slices of their decadent cakes, including celebration-worthy showstoppers for all occasions, from mint tuxedo with a whipped peppermint ganache to a fluffy lemon meringue nestled beneath lemon cream cheese frosting, and a hazelnut-coconut cake with Viennese buttercream, huckleberry compote, and praline.

Scholar, Northeast Broadway’s recently opened Italian-ish restaurant, is a study in what it means to be timeless but new. The restaurant, though only open since August, already has drawn a crowd of regulars into its well-lived space, clinking glasses over traditional-esque Italian plates with creative twists. Find dishes like pappardelle Bolognese, here kicked up a notch with ancho chiles, a fall risotto with mushrooms, peanut gravy, and pickled apples, and maybe the most intriguing: crispy Buffalo chicken livers dotted with smoked blue cheese over heirloom polenta. Elsewhere on the menu, there’s cozy classics like chicken/eggplant Parmesan, a vegetarian Caesar, and 12” New York-style pizzas with a range of toppings (and available for take-out).

Call 503-344-1507 for reservations.

A massive log cabin overlooking the Clackamas River, the Stone Cliff Inn brings new meaning to “bringing the outside in.” The space, located in Carver just outside Oregon City, is one of the few spaces in the Portland metro area that brings outdoor balcony dining, old-growth forests and trails, and a Pacific Northwest menu together. During the day, the menu focuses on PNW-inspired classics, like smoked salmon cakes, smoked clam chowder, burgers and sandwiches, and a fish-heavy entree list, like fish and chips and grilled Columbia Steelhead. At night, the menu transitions into more steakhouse vibes, with many of the same starters and salads preceding seared rib eyes and filet mignons, alongside baby back ribs and shrimp linguine.

This longstanding wine country outpost was one of the area’s few fine-dining destinations when it opened in 1991. Today, the reputation remains, with its short but sweet menu of seasonal dishes using local produce and wild-caught proteins finished with classic desserts and timeless cocktails. And truthfully, wine country menus don’t get more classic than this, with dishes like fried Willapa Bay oysters with sorrel aioli, rack of lamb with minted hazelnut-Dijon persillade, and a souffle Provencal, studded with fresh herbs and Cyprus Grove goat cheese. Desserts include a vanilla bean creme brulee and a chocolate Victoire, while cocktails harken back to a different generation, with Spanish coffees, grasshoppers, and Sambuca-infused affogatos.