The Resy Hit List: Where In Portland You’ll Want to Eat in Sept. 2025

Tucked behind European-inspired brewery and taproom Away Days Brewing Co., you’ll find Champs Burgers, the once-pop-up now turned full-time food cart. Like many of Portland’s great burger joints, the menu is simple: A cheeseburger (made with dry-aged beef, quality American cheese, onions, pickles, and burger sauce on a housemade Cairspring Mills flour-based bun), in a single, double, and thick version. Plus, a rotating special (previous favorites have included a lengua pastrami burger and pickled jalapeño-topped Oklahoma burger); beef tallow fries; and a cookie (from classics like chopped chocolate chip to pumpkin toffee spiced corn). The cart continues to draw long lines, and it’s worth joining the queue.

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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. 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. We’re partial to the red cabbage with smoked herring and African pepper sauce and a glazed duck breast and leg, lacquered with cane syrup. Add in sides to share, and desserts, and you’ll see why Gourdet is so lauded.

This final project of restaurant titan Naomi Pomeroy was in its toddler-hood when the famed and beloved chef tragically died last summer. After a short run as a pop-up and a few months of build-out, L’Echelle is finally officially open again. On a recent visit, the restaurant hummed brightly, the space’s previously black-rimmed windows now shining an alluring cobalt blue. A short but expansive bistro menu offered all the hallmarks of French classics with a signature PNW flair. Oeufs as large as snowballs arrived buried in an airy, lemony aioli while a generous stack of chilled asparagus nestled into a green allium remoulade. Elsewhere, find a short raw menu and a quartet of well-priced mains like steak au poivre and seared duck breast. It’s the buzziest restaurant in town right now, and we can’t wait to go back. Oh, and did we mention? Reservations are live.

Down an alley along Southeast Division, is Someday, the neighborhood cocktail bar from bartending vets-turned-back-alley cocktail patio and mini food cart pod. Sip old and new cocktail recipes from a classic Scofflaw to a reimagined daiquiri, here infused with pandan. Bites (from the bar itself) focus heavily on snacks, with dishes like olives, cheeses, anchovies, simple veggie plates and a fancier old-fashioned weiner. But if none of the bar’s options fit your fancy, or you missed snagging a reservation for the bar’s Sunday evening oyster grill, explore Ruthie’s, the wood-fired pizza cart located just behind the bar.

The newest restaurant in the Montelupo family, opening right around the corner from its Sellwood focacceria, is Monty’s Red Sauce, chef and owner Adam Berger’s version of an East Coast Italian American restaurant. Here, among low-slung, red vinyl booths, find dishes like generous portions of spaghetti and meatballs; thick, golden cutlets of chicken Parm; chicken marsala; and fried starters like mozzarella sticks and calamari alongside Monty’s creative spin on the antipasti plate: the mozzarella bar, with a you-pick selection of cheese, dips, and veggies.

This former vegan dim sum pop-up from chef Cyrus Ichiza, whose restaurant Ichiza Kitchen was a destination, just moved into its own digs on Southeast Belmont. Here, find deceivingly good vegan variations of many popular Chinese and dim sum dishes like grilled bean curd dumplings, turnip cake, spicy wontons, siu mai and char siu bao. Elsewhere on the menu, larger dishes like Jade’s take on dan dan noodles, mapo tofu, and a ramen-esque “mami noodle soup” fill out the rest of the table.

A second, pink-flooded Champagne Poetry just landed on NW 23rd. This bold, unapologetic patisserie known for its Asian-inspired mirror-glazed cakelets, macarons, and occasional X-rated Valentine’s Day sweets, has expanded across the river with a cocktail lounge menu. At the new location, find the same beloved baked goods alongside an expanded Champagne list, creative cocktails, and new savory dishes like duck leg ramen, Hokkaido uni over rice, and sliced wagyu with purple sweet potatoes.

This Southeast Grand Avenue cocktail bar focuses on Nikkei cuisine, bringing a menu inspired by Peruvian ingredients with Japanese technique as well as Vietnamese flavors. Dishes on the short-but-sweet menu range from pork belly and shrimp salad rolls and leche de tigre-spiked oysters to akishisho chicken and noodles and saltado steak (as well as mushroom or tofu). An equally long cocktail menu takes much of the same global inspiration, shaking up Calpico with gin and melon, rum with tropical fruit, and rye with blood orange foam.

After a down-the-street move into Clinton Street’s former mussels house La Moule, Portland’s key oyster bar has reopened with all the same favorites. One of the city’s few seafood-centric spots, Jacqueline’s biggest claim to fame is the $1 oyster happy hour (harvested and delivered the same day!) and seasonal menu of fresh fare. Guests line up six days a week for oysters, fish-focused small plates, seasonal veggie salads and fishy large-format dishes. Summertime brings lobster buns, tossing Maine lobster and bay shrimp in lobster aioli; cedar-planked McFarland trout with grilled lemon; and in a nod to the location’s former owners, Totten Inlet mussels dotted with ‘nduja, garlic scapes, and fennel, appropriately named “La Moule.”

Dame’s former anchor restaurant Estes is now taking up residence in Mississippi’s Broder Nord. Four evenings a week, chef Patrick McKee will be serving his Italian-inspired menu after the popular Scandinavian brunch spot shutters for the day, trading Swedish hash and aebleskivers for fresh pastas stuffed with butternut squash and porchetta paired with polenta and braised kale. The short but sweet menu changes frequently, swapping out seasonal veggies and pasta sets as winter continues to wane. For those that want to bring a bite of Estes home, neighborhood favorite Bella’s Italian Bakery in Southeast Portland stocks fresh pastas and sauces from the Estes team in the grab-and-go fridge.

It’s not a secret that Portland is a pretty good barbecue town, with transplanted Texas heavy-hitters smoking up excellent brisket, snappy sausages, and beyond. This past summer, roving barbecue truck HarBQ set up shop outside North Portland’s new Von Ebert Brewing, and brought its “Oregon oak smoked PNW ‘style’ BBQ” to the German-inspired brewery. From Friday to Sundays, find meats like brisket, beef cheek, fish sauce pork ribs, chimi pork shoulder, and sambal chicken paired with ginger miso carrot slaw, cheesy dashi grits, and miso koji butter corn. Like most good barbecue, they sell out quickly, so make sure to line up early.   

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Next door to its new-ish Mississippi Avenue Rangoon Bistro location comes an even newer drinking tavern from the same team. Named Bone Sine, a callback to the communal drinking taverns found in Myanmar, with a bar program from the Tulip Shop Tavern team, the late-night snack bar offers extra seating by day and a fun, shareable menu by night. Find options like tamarind chicken wings, lahpet htamin — the fluffy, fermented tea-leaf studded rice topped with a fried egg — cold sesame noodles, grilled housemade lemongrass sausage, and more. Drinks take inspiration from Burmese ingredients, with pandan-infused Campari Negronis, spicy Thai chile-spiked mango margaritas, and coconut fat-washed old-fashioneds.

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The next trick up Ryley Eckersley’s sleeve after Quaintrelle and Äniks is a new concept where “culinary exploration meets artistic expression.” Another intimate, 16-seat dinner experience, Eckersley describes Wølf as a “sanctuary for experimentation, music, art, having fun, and feeding people; fine dining turned on its head.” The 10-course menu will take inspiration from Oregon’s various ecosystems — the ocean, coast, mountains, and valleys — along with the bounty of the region to build a one-of-a-kind dining experience and evening. A “super dope” optional beverage pairing is also available for purchase.

No Saint’s excellent bread program and creative seasonal vegetable dishes earn this Northeast Portland restaurant a spot in the strong class of pizza and pizza-adjacent restaurants that have become pillars of the area’s culinary scene. Even in the winter months when seasonal options are limited, the menu continues to shine, and especially now with spring on the horizon. Salads are a must, like mache with preserved citrus and green daikon in a tahini vinaigrette. Elsewhere, housemade pastas are worth the table space and of course, the main event: Wonderfully chewy and creative pies that support a cast of toppings like nowhere else in town (cabbage alla gricia? Sign us up). These cycle through frequently and we’re consistently impressed.

This longstanding wine country outpost was one of the area’s few fine dining destinations when it opened in 1991. It maintains its stance as a regional culinary leader with its short but sweet menu of seasonal dishes using local produce and wild-caught proteins, plus classic desserts and timeless cocktails. Wine country menus don’t get more classic than this, with dishes like fried Willapa Bay oysters with sorrel aioli, rack of lamb with mint-hazelnut-Dijon persillade, and a souffle Provencal studded with fresh herbs and Cypress Grove goat cheese. Desserts include a vanilla bean crème brûlée and a chocolate Victoire, while cocktails harken back to a different generation with Spanish coffees, grasshoppers, and Sambuca affogatos.

Vince Nguyen’s popular, gluten- and dairy-free Vietnamese bakery is back, with an expanded menu of offerings and longer hours. Now, four days a week in the same former fine-dining location, find the cult-favorite bánh bò nướng, Berlu’s signature “baked cow cake” available in pandan or coffee, custard tarts sporting seasonal fruits, and refreshing chè packed with locally sourced fruit alongside a slate of new savory options. In place of soups — Berlu’s previous savory option — now find a “BEC” bánh xèo lightened with a touch of basil and an avocado toast using a hard-grilled bánh bò nướng as the base with alfalfa sprouts, fried shallots, and salted coconut cream.

Find more info here.