After the tumult of late 2019, when some of Portland’s best restaurants, bars and bakeries closed for good, this year opens with a brighter outlook. Local food fans have more sushi, more ramen and a shocking amount of fried chicken to look forward to in 2020. Here are 10 pieces of Portland restaurant news for January, 2020:

We are in the midst of a new fried chicken craze

Remember the fried-chicken sandwich wars of 2016? Our waistlines don’t. Now it seems we’re in the midst of another fried chicken escalation, only this one without bread. Last year saw the arrival of Micah Camden’s surprisingly tasty Baes in Old Town, Sunday fried chicken suppers downtown at Bullard, the Cully neighborhood’s fried chicken-focused Yonder and a second location of southern Thai sensation Hat Yai in close-in Southeast, among others. Southeast Portland food cart Jojo technically opened in 2018, but their sandwich is the first real challenger to Basilisk’s local hegemony. And we already have a few more crunchy birds to look forward to in 2020, including Bullard chef Doug Adams and Jen Quist’s Sellwood spin-off Holler, mega Korean chicken-wing chain Bonchon and the first Oregon location of Oprah’s personal favorite, Ezell’s. All that, and East Burnside chicken and waffle destination Screen Door is set to open a second location in the Pearl District this year.

One of Portland’s best ramen shops is headed for the 'burbs

Last month, the Portland Food & Drink blog broke the news that Afuri, a well-regarded Japanese ramen import that claimed to have picked Portland as the site of its first American location for the quality of our Bull Run water, will open a second location in Beaverton. The water must be pretty good in Beaverton, too. Eater PDX filled in a few more details this week, including that the new location will offer a similar menu to the Southeast Portland original -- as opposed to the streamlined Old Town location -- with ramen, gyoza, sushi, robata skewers and a bar. Expect the 85-seat restaurant to open this spring at 12577 S.W. First St., adding to the city’s already solid ramen options, including the standby Yuzu and the newer (and now underrated?) Shizuki.

Your new (old) home for sustainable seafood ... and meat

Here’s an interesting tidbit from the Good Stuff NW blog: Providore Fine Foods, the upscale grocer at 2340 N.E. Sandy Blvd., is bringing in a pair of new tenants to replace Flying Fish Company. First up, Two X Sea, a San Francisco-based sustainable seafood company that sells its products to a number of top Portland restaurants. Plans call for an oyster bar with food from Erizo chef Jacob Harth. But that’s not all. Revel, the local meat company from former Old Salt Marketplace owner Ben Meyer and James Serlin, is bringing its local product to the deli case as well. Meanwhile, over the holidays, I popped into Providore for a round of oysters and pink bubbles -- the wine now sold, annoyingly, on the opposite side of the store -- and learned that Flying Fish Company is now shooting for an early February opening for their restaurant and market, with a few pop-up-type things sprinkled in the week or two before.

Portland’s latest sushi counter to feature more Oregon seafood

Sam Saltos, the former sushi chef at downtown’s Departure and co-owner of Northeast Alberta Street’s Zilla, will wield the sharp knives at Hinoki, a new 12-seat sushi counter in Southeast Portland, according to a press release. The restaurant, named for the famed Japanese cypress, will take up the space at 4529 S.E. Division St. sandwiched between chef John Gorham’s Tasty N Daughters and the original Stumptown cafe and is backed by Gorham’s Toro Bravo restaurant group. Saltos, an Oregon native, plans to supplement the Japanese fish used at Zilla and other top Portland sushi restaurants with seafood from the Oregon coast, a product that can be difficult to source consistently. “The Oregon coast is only sixty miles away," Saltos said, "but we might as well be on the moon.” The restaurant, which will feature a sushi bar and other design elements made from local Port Orford cedar, is the 10th project backed by the Toro Bravo group (or 11th, if Israeli spot Y’alla can open in the Multnomah Village’s former Gastro Mania spot first).

Pearl District adds pair of new-ish Mexican restaurants

Eater PDX had the scoop on two new (or new-ish) Mexican restaurants in Portland’s Pearl District. First off, at Papi Chulo’s, which opened last month at 611 N.W. 13th Ave., chef Antonio Javier Palma Caceres serves nachos, burritos, beef birria served with consome, tortillas made from Three Sisters masa and pre-batched margaritas, including a strawberry-lime number that sounds just right to perk up this cold winter weather. Meanwhile, Casa Tolteca, which opened last fall, then closed for a recalibration, will reopen Jan. 13 in the former Park Kitchen space, 422 N.W. Eighth Ave., with breakfast and lunch service including huevos rancheros, pozole and Caesar salads, with dinner to resume shortly thereafter from co-chefs Alex Fernandez and co-chef Celestina Guarcas.

Your new summer drinking destination is already here

Right at the start of the year, Portland restaurant industry vets Jessica Baesler and Graham Files opened their dream bar, Someday, in a tucked-away space at 3634 S.E. Division St. Found down an alley on the same block as the old Victory Bar (R.I.P.), Someday features a walnut bar, black walnut banquettes and a menu of both classic and original cocktails alongside simple bites such as Brillat Savarin cheese with local honey, chicken liver mousse with balsamic onions and Otto’s old fashioned wieners. The back-alley courtyard is also home to a trio of food carts: Ash Woodfired (pizza), Let’s Roll (sushi) and Alley Mezza (Mediterranean).

180 Xurros is making a comeback (hurray!)

When The Oregonian broke the news late last year that chef Jose Chesa was opening a new restaurant, Masia, we asked the chef for an update on 180 Xurros and Xocalata, the beloved Barcelona-style xurro joint on Northeast Broadway that closed in 2018. “We are working on it," he said at the time, "but nothing is confirmed.” Turns out, a scaled-back 180 will indeed make a comeback -- right alongside Masia in the lobby of the Hyatt Centric hotel at Southwest Alder Street and 11th Avenue. As Portland Monthly reports, the reborn shop will also feature grab-and-go Spanish sandwiches, espresso drinks from Never Coffee and more. Tentative opening date: February.

Grassa’s third location (and first on the East Side) is open now

Biking up Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard last week, I noticed customers already inside the new Grassa, the handmade pasta restaurant from Lardo chef-owner Rick Gencarelli at 1475 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd. The new location -- Grassa’s third -- has a similar menu and decor to the two westside restaurants, but this was the first one that Gencarelli and his team got to build from the ground up. You might want to head there soon: Tipsters report that Gencarelli himself has been in the kitchen making pasta.

Some of America’s best chefs are headed for the Oregon hills

This year, The Suttle Lodge has rolled out an extra impressive lineup for its fourth annual chef series. From January to June, the lodge will bring some of America’s hottest chefs to Central Oregon for “one-of-a-kind dinners in a cozy forest setting." This year’s lineup, which was curated by former Bon Appétit restaurant editor Andrew Knowlton, includes Jeremy Charles of Newfoundland’s Raymond (Jan. 25), Tom Cunanan of Washington, D.C.'s, Bad Saint, Nite Yun of Oakland’s Nyum Bai and Mason Hereford of New Orlean’s Turkey and the Wolf. Dinners cost $95 per person and are served family-style. More information at TheSuttleLodge.com/Happenings.

Are these Portland’s restaurants of the decade?

Last but not least (and ICYMI, we took a crack at narrowing down the 10 restaurants that defined the 2010s.

-- Michael Russell, mrussell@oregonian.com, @tdmrussell

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