The 10 Restaurants That Defined Portland Dining This Year

By now, if you haven’t been able to snag a reservation at Kann, you’re probably tired of hearing people tell you about it. But for old time’s sake, here’s one more time for good measure.

Yes, this perennially busy restaurant from “Top Chef” alum Gregory Gourdet opened in summer 2022, but there’s no arguing that 2023 was The Year of Kann. It was already a hit when it first opened last August, with its gold-brushed ceiling, quartzite counters, and trailing greenery. But that momentum has only grown.

The restaurant – completely gluten- and dairy-free, unbeknownst to many – proudly focuses on Gourdet’s Haitian heritage alongside an unbeatable non-alcoholic bar presence, a beacon for those like Gourdet, who celebrate their sobriety. Just downstairs, the restaurant’s dark and moody see-or-be-seen twin, Sousòl, highlights the cuisines of Haiti, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Mexico and beyond — in a clubby space decked out in Caribbean blue tile and plush hot pink velvet banquettes.

It didn’t take long for Kann to scoop a Beard award for Best New Restaurant, what with dishes like its phenomenal gluten-free plantain brioche with epis butter, and griyo twice-cooked pork, both ingrained into signature dish territory. It was the first time Portland ever brought home that honor.

We suggest coming with a group, ordering multiples of the plantain brioche (because who likes to share that much?) and any number of plates emerging from the wood-fired hearth: red cabbage with smoked herring and African pepper sauce; shimmering glazed duck breast and leg, lacquered with cane syrup and snappy pineapple; and a hearty coffee-rubbed, bone-in ribeye. You can see the kind of enthusiasm Kann generates — and if you haven’t made it yet, we figure soon you won’t be able to stop talking about Kann either.

Portland has long been a scrappy restaurant city, one that has supported passion projects and early concepts for dozens of chefs whose pop-ups and special menus carved out nights in empty event spaces, off-days at notable restaurants and even storage areas and entryways. But for years, once those pop-ups sought to mature into more “official” concepts, there were few options besides opening a food cart or trying to put together a brick-and-mortar on an often shoestring budget.

Not so anymore thanks to Dame Collective. The multi-faceted, multi-building space fills that gap, with larger, dedicated spaces for more tenured concepts alongside the Dame restaurant itself, plus time for one-day pop-ups and special events. In any given week, the Collective might host four to six different menus and concepts; Lil Dame alone spreads the love between Matta (Monday-Wednesday), Chelo (Thursday-Sunday) and Bialy Bird (daytime, Friday-Saturday).

Next door, the official Dame menu runs from Wednesday to Sunday, and the Collective still runs its wine pick-up/delivery service (not to mention a host of other off-location partners). The one-of-a-kind space proves that when it takes a village, everybody wins.

The original St. Jack duo that brought Portland its beloved and longstanding French bistro and cascading waxy candles (still a fixture at the current Northwest location) got back together to recreate a bit of magic again with Heavenly Creatures late last year. The can’t-miss wine bar was among the first “post-pandemic” favorites that signaled the city’s food scene might just make it out of a few hard years.

Here, a short-but-sweet menu keeps the focus on French-inspired drinking foods to help keep the wine flowing all night. Snacks like whipped Camembert with potato chips and the young yellowtail toast have risen to signature status, while heartier snacks and plates like country pâté baguette with apple butter and saffron grilled chicken thigh mean you won’t need to stop elsewhere for “real” dinner. Wine, of course, is the main event, ranging from a lengthy glass pour list to a robust bottle selection, available to enjoy on-site with a $15 corkage or at home.

Find more info here.

The newest restaurant from Peter Cho and Sun Young Park of the Han Oak family is named for the island from which Cho’s maternal family hails — and dedicated to upscale Korean barbecue. The menu, currently a $75 per person set format, takes guests through a quartet of banchan plus a cold and hot starter — currently a dry-aged Hawaiian kampachi and the signature pan-fried mandu with lacy edges resting in a pool of black vinegar bone broth — before a substantial ssam spread of wood-fired, whole animal barbecue chosen by the chef and a truly fantastic side of buttered rice crisped in the wood-fired oven.

Recent cuts have included bulgogi marinated steak, pork coppa, spicy sausages made in-house, and sliced short rib, with vegetarian options available as well. After dinner, in true Han Oak family fashion, guests are welcome to try their hand at karaoke, though your audience will be your fellow diners. But you also never know who might have come to dinner. On a recent visit, Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy sang “Fairytale of Old New York” by The Pogues with his son: a perfect, endearing private concert for 20, under disco strobe lights by the bar.

Named for the 1960s and ‘70s-era poster company, Houston Blacklight is the Gado Gado and Oma’s Hideaway team’s third Portland endeavor; this time, a tongue-in-cheek, playful bar concept in the former Night Light Lounge space along Southeast Clinton. Here, drinks take on the retro-fantasy of the ‘70s, with neon-bright cocktails, highballs, slushies, and non-alcoholic sippers garnished with toy dinosaurs and umbrellas.

Food also takes on a similar retro feel, with a side of inspiration by way of Montreal, like French onion soup ramen made with instant noodles, roti grilled cheese paired with tomato coconut curry, shrimp cocktail with sambal terrasi, and poutine-like mapo tofu gravy fries, complete with bites of tofu. On the weekends, the bar lets a little more daylight in with brunch, which pulls some menu items from the evening hours, remixes the shrimp cocktail into a shrimp Benedict, and adds an egg plate and kimchi hash. In all, it reminds us how and why Portland does great bars so well.

Find more info here.

Xiao Ye, a “first generation American” restaurant from partners Jolyn Chen and Louis Lin, who reconnected in their Southern California hometown before both joining the staff at D.C.’s Rose’s Luxury has been one of the city’s most anticipated restaurant openings all year (Lin also spent time at Venice’s Felix, where he worked his way to chef de cuisine.)

The short-but-sweet menu boasts five sections, with each offering two to three multinational dishes. Plates kick off with mini madelines with whipped butter and jalapeño powder and butter-basted chicken hearts, before weaving between “cold,” “warm,” and “bigger stuff,” before landing at “sweets.” Medjool date-studded radicchio salad and squash toast in the cold section balance out headliner dishes like a twist on the classic rigatoni alla gricia and the half fried chicken with S&B curry jus, Japanese sweet potato with miso butter, and celeriac slaw. If you needed another reason to go: Samuel Meoño, former head chef of Michelin-starred Rose’s, is also on the opening team. More than that, though, this is a perfect encapsulation of restaurant as personal expression.

Killingsworth’s former home to Handsome Pizza and Seastar Bakery has been steadily making a name for itself since opening a little more than a year ago. The restaurant, born from years of pop-up fine-tuning across town, including an extended residency at the now ever-present pop-up hub Dame Collective (see above), has emerged as one of the best new pizza restaurants in the city, not to mention a home for fantastic salads, pasta and natural wines.

Here, find a handful of simple antipasti — think housemade focaccia and olives — alongside composed plates, like a fall burrata built out with black garlic, pickled cherry and winter savory. Salads capitalize on the bounty of the seasons; a recent radish and apple salad showcased a tightwire act of bitterness and sweetness. Pizzas, too, walk that fine line of ingenuity and madness, with a wonderfully chewy, fire-kissed crust supporting a cast of toppings you’re unlikely to find anywhere else. Of course there’s a tomato pie (with an optional burrata add) and a plain cheese pizza, but there’s also quince and pepperoni, the Portland version of a Hawaiian; a pear and sausage that brings the best of a pear salad and sausage pie together; and a sprouting broccoli à la gricia, proving that with the right hand, you really can make anything into a pizza.

Sushi in Portland has gone through a renaissance over the past decade, from a handful of chef counters, nigiri spots, and more Americanized mega-roll standbys (no shade, we’ll happily eat anything with cream cheese and tempura shrimp) to ultra high-end specialty spots like Nodoguro and more recently, Kaede, a sushi-kappo spot in a small Sellwood storefront. Almost a year later, it’s still tricky to snag a table. The sushi-meets-bistro menu is fairly simple: sushi and sashimi sets, sashimi by-the-two-piece, rolls with fish sourced straight from the famed Toyosu fish market in Japan, and a short menu of mostly hot and cold prepared dishes. Fish selection varies on availability, but you’ll find mostly classics here, from marbled o-toro and seared salmon belly to striped jack and uni. Dishes on the bistro side start with sunomono and fried shishito peppers before diving into heartier dishes like fried scallop skewers, roasted duck breast, miso cod, and a mini kamo-negi soba.

Call 503-327-8916 for more info.

When L’Orange hit the scene earlier this year, it meant a return of two of the biggest and most-missed names in the tasting menu scene: Joel Stocks (Holdfast) and winemaker Jeff Vejr, who selected the restaurant’s wines before going on to open Alberta Street’s Les Caves. Though both used to work together at the fine-dining restaurant Holdfast, the wine-focused L’Orange is much simpler, more a place to enjoy a delicious plate of food and a glass of wine than an evening-long tasting menu (though that’s coming soon on the weekends).

The Western Mediterranean plays heavy inspiration here, with much of the menu frolicking between seasonal salads, composed small plates, and larger entrees often incorporating some form of seafood, like mussels and clams with roasted fennel and smoked and roasted sturgeon with oil-cured black olive. Wine is a particular draw here as well, with bottles representing Southern France through the Italian Riviera.

By now, Portlanders know any Earl Ninsom concept is going to be a hit. Yaowarat, the newest restaurant from the ever-popular Langbaan and Eem family, opened to fanfare and lines out the door of the former Lazy Susan space two months ago. A meditation on Bangkok’s Chinatown, Yaowarat combines the cocktail prowess of Eric Nelson and Kyle Linden Webster (Expatriate) with the culinary prowess of two Thai chefs: Kanokwan “Nok” Jinuntuya and Hat Yai alum Taweesak “Tee” Teesompong.

While the menu won’t be exactly what visitors might find in the bustling Bangkok neighborhood, it will encapsulate the group’s feeling and sights from a summertime trip earlier this year, all while honoring all the vendors and merchants who bring that Thai Chinatown to life. Initial dishes include Yaowarat Road squid, spiked with garlic and Thai chiles; salted fish fried rice paired with Chinese broccoli and prik nam pla; and mapo tofu, simmered with ground beef and pork and soft egg tofu. Behind the bar, look for Nelson’s signature vacation-inspired cocktails, infused with Thai ingredients and flavors, alongside a $45 Singha tower for big groups, big nights, and big fun.

Find more info here.