The January Hit List: Canard, Xiao Ye, Ox, and More

With two locations both in town and “out” — Oregon City is still very much “in town,” but we digress — Le Pigeon’s little sister Canard is still a must-visit. At its expanded (suburban) digs, find greatest-hits menu items like the White Castle-inspired steam burgers, duck-fat pancakes, and inventive small bites that always made this bistro worth the hype. New dishes in the larger space include steak or duck frites with rosemary garlic fries, hot chicken tenders dipped in togarashi oil, and kale lasagna with sherry-glazed chanterelles.

Also new, thanks to the expanded footprint, is the burger and ice cream window, perfect for getting your hands on the too-good-to-ever-be-bad-for-you steam burgers and this location’s expanded ice cream desserts menu. Get in line for a quartet of sundaes, like pine nut buster, mango sticky rice, and apple cobbler, layered with gooey butter cake, oat streusel, and cider caramel.

The newest sibling to Portland’s famous two-soup-a-day spots Ha and Rose VL opened less than two months ago along the heart of Belmont Ave. Annam VL, like Rose and Ha, offers many of the same fantastic Vietnamese noodle soups — bun rieu, bo kho, pho ga, pho bac, and more — that rocketed Ha to fame on its carpe diem-esque schedule, as well as new poached sticky rice dumplings, the return of banh mi, and salad rolls. The wood-lined space is straightforward and simple, perfect for a quick lunch before they sell out.

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Peter Cho and Sun Young Park’s (Han Oak, Toki) latest restaurant is dedicated to upscale Korean barbecue. The menu, currently a $75 per person, takes guests through a quartet of banchan, a cold and hot starter — recently a dry-aged Hawaiian kampachi and the signature pan-fried mandu with lace resting in a pool of black vinegar bone broth — before a hearty ssam spread of wood-fired, whole-animal barbecue chosen by the chef, and swoon-worthy buttered rice crisped in the wood-fired oven. Meats range from bulgogi marinated steak and pork coppa to spicy sausages made in-house and sliced short rib, as well as substantial vegetarian options. After dinner, in true Han Oak family fashion, guests are welcome to try their hand at karaoke, though your audience will be your previous fellow diners. But after a luxurious night of KBBQ, what do you have to lose?

Portland’s arguably most sought-after restaurant proudly focuses on chef Gregory Gourdet’s Haitian heritage. And it’s still worth trying to snag a reservation. The James Beard Award-winning menu is truly best suited for joyous reunion, with groups of four to six (or more in the private dining space!) getting a chance to try a little bit of everything if you’re sharing across the table. However, options abound for couples and individual diners, if you’re hoping to bring leftovers home. Don’t miss the signature dishes — the plaintain brioche and the griyo twice-cooked pork — as well as any number of plates emerging from the wood-fired hearth. Try 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 rib eye. Add in a few sides to share, and desserts, and you’ll be glad you made the effort.

L’Orange, the new winery restaurant from Joel Stocks (Holdfast) and winemaker Jeff Vejr (Holdfast, Les Caves), is one of those born-beloved Portland spots you forget has only been around for a few months. 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. Wines will be a particular draw here as well, with bottles representing southern France through the Italian Riviera.

Speaking of Les Caves … spend a chilly evening cozying up at this subterranean wine bar this winter. One of the most unique spaces in town, it not only boasts an absolutely fantastic wine list, but a truly singular and eponymous aesthetic. Hidden behind and beneath Roseline Coffee and a vintage store, guests will find an ever-changing wine list, with glasses from across the world alongside bottles from the owners’ two labels: Golden Cluster and Ovum. It’s never easy to choose what to order, so thankfully the wait staff is particularly knowledgeable and ready with suggestions and tastings to boot. Hearty snacks — namely, one of the best grilled cheeses in town — help balance overindulgence. If it’s available and you feel particularly limber, make sure to reserve the nook, a partially private, half-hidden couch and table only accessible by a short climb up a three-and-a-half foot stone ledge.

Since it opened a little more than a year ago, No Saint 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. Find a handful of simple antipasti: think housemade focaccia and olives alongside composed plates like a fall burrata with blueberry mostarda and mortadella. Salads highlight seasonal bounty; a recent radish and apple salad showcased a highwire act of bitterness and sweetness, with the balancing aid of ricotta salata and colatura vinaigrette. And of course, pizzas hold their own, with a wonderfully chewy, fire-kissed crust supporting a cast of toppings you’re unlikely to find anywhere else. There’s a 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 a la gricia, proving that pizza really is the best food.

This beloved Argentine grill has had a commanding presence over Portland’s dining scene since it opened a decade ago, thanks to its only-stunners menu. There’s the always fantastic cocktail list (the Dirty Grandma Agnes martini is a must), not to mention a beautiful wine selection — plus, a great outdoor patio for those perfect summer nights. The by-land-and-sea menu combines iconic dishes, like the clam chowder with a smoked marrow bone and the tripe and octopus with a fantastic line-up of meats, vegetables, and fish grilled to perfection on the central cast-iron hearth. Meat options rotate throughout the year, but when the halibut collar is on the menu, it should be on everyone’s table, dietary restrictions aside.

Scotch Lodge, the warm, subterranean cocktail bar whose menu was built for “whisky lovers,” might be one of the coziest bars in Portland this winter. Cocktails remain some of the best in town, highlighting Japanese whiskies, Islay Scotches, and ingenious infused spirits in creative drinks like the Islay daiquiri, shaken with pineapple rum and coconut-oolong demerara and the Loch Stock, stirred with Scotch, mezcal, and lapsang souchong-infused sweet vermouth. The food menu, for the most part, sticks to small and shareable, with salty snacks and bites to balance your drink (the pickle spice fries and something from the raw menu are a must), with a handful of mains — like the beautiful soft-shell crab sandwich — to make it a meal.

Xiao Ye, a “first generation American” restaurant from partners Jolyn Chen and Louis Lin (Rose’s Luxury in D.C., Felix in L.A.) was one of the city’s most anticipated restaurant openings last year. The short-but-sweet, dinner party-esque 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, then weave between “cold,” “warm,” and “bigger stuff,” and land at “sweets.” A radicchio and winter citrus salad with cashew yogurt and vegan XO and squash toast in the cold section balance out headliner dishes like the rigatoni all’amatriciana, the half fried chicken with S&B curry jus, or Japanese sweet potato with miso butter and celeriac slaw.