The view from the mezzanine at Kachka, one of Portland's 40 best restaurants (and the one that taught America that Russian food could be cool. (Noble Guyon | The Oregonian)

You can't blame Portland chefs for looking back.



In the late 2000s, when Andy Ricker was still building his Pok Pok from a chicken shack to a bicoastal restaurant empire, Naomi Pomeroy was charming customers with a new and more communal form of finer dining at Beast and Gabriel Rucker was blowing minds at his turnkey East Burnside bistro, Le Pigeon. The national food media had yet to discover that the Pacific Northwest had more than one city. Anything seemed possible.



Many things were possible. In the decade since, Pok Poks opened (then closed) in New York and Los Angeles, Beast and Le Pigeon each added a sister restaurant, while other hits such as Toro Bravo, Clyde Common and Laurelhurst Market birthed local empires of their own.



Plenty of great places have opened since, including Portland restaurants in our top 10, such as Ox, St. Jack, Han Oak, Langbaan, Nodoguro and Coquine. But, now that every city in America has a scratch-everything restaurant with pickles on the shelves and a high-end tasting menu in the back, Portland doesn't feel quite so unique. The city has begun asking itself some tough questions about its identity, including who gets to open prominent restaurants, and why. And the national media have eaten their fill. Last year, Bon Appetit magazine named Portland its restaurant city of the year. The only problem? They were talking about the one in Maine.



As we revisited the 40 restaurants (and dozens besides) that appear in this year's guide, we kept running into signs of a scene looking to roll back the clock. Ricker has focused his attention on the dish that made Pok Pok a sensation, opening three fast-casual wing joints in as many years. On Tuesdays, Pomeroy can be found cooking a less expensive menu with room reserved for walk-ins at her celebrated Northeast Portland restaurant. And last year, Rucker opened a new all-day cafe/restaurant/bar next door to Le Pigeon with the same anarchic, anything-goes attitude as his first.



This year's 40 drops seven long-standing favorites: Aviary, Little Bird Bistro, Luce, Ringside and Roe and the now-closed Old Salt Marketplace and The Woodsman Tavern. In their place are Bistro Agnes, the impressive French rebound from the Ox team; Canard, the latest lively sister restaurant to Le Pigeon; Holdfast Dining, looking comfortable in its new digs; Little Conejo, an over-achieving Vancouver taqueria; Navarre, wine-focused restaurant that opened a decade ahead of its time; Nimblefish, which brings high-level sushi to the people; and OK Omens, a hip wine bar and restaurant from the Castagna crew. Big movers this year included two pleasant surprises, Ned Ludd and Jacqueline, as well as Han Oak and Ataula. And 2019 brings a new restaurant to the No. 1 spot.



It's not healthy to spend all your life looking in the rearview mirror. And indeed, starting next week, we'll start hunting down our favorite new restaurants of the year, from Nashville-style fried chicken to wok-fried Indonesian haunts to plant-based chef's counters and everything in between (follow along at oregonlive.com/dining). But, at least this year, let's celebrate the glory days. Introducing our latest ranking of Portland's top 40 restaurants for 2019.

PRICE KEY

$ (about $12 or less per entree)

$$ ($13-$20 per entree)

$$$ ($21-$30 per entree)

$$$$ ($31 or more per entree)

-- Michael Russell

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(Illustration by Mark Graves | The Oregonian)

No. 40: LITTLE CONEJO

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Little Conejo is the best possible reason to visit Vancouver. (Photo by Michael Russell | The Oregonian)

114 W. Sixth St., Vancouver

360-718-2633

Lunch and dinner, Tuesday-Saturday; brunch Sunday

$

Our closest neighbor to the north has offered several reasons to cross the Columbia River of late, including the city’s new waterfront development, the pies and frozen concretes at Rally Pizza (8070 E. Mill Plain Blvd.) and the IPAs, hazy or otherwise, at Trap Door (2315 Main St.) and Brothers Cascadia (9811 N.E. 15th Ave.). But the first restaurant that had us wondering what it would be like to actually live in Southwest Washington was this tall-ceilinged taqueria from former Nodoguro sous chef Mark Wooten. Little Conejo, which Wooten opened in a former beauty school with ex-Noble Rot bartender Mychal Dynes, uses the same time-intensive tortilla-making process found at high-end Mexican restaurants in Portland and San Francisco, grinding and curing corn in a process called nixtamalization. Only here it’s in service of $3-$4 tacos. The resulting masa is formed into yellow tortillas that spend a little time on the griddle, then get filled with pungent lamb barbacoa, al pastor carved from the spit or beer-battered fried fish for families sitting at wooden tables or day-drinkers sipping margaritas at the mezcal-happy bar.

Order:

Tacos, particularly the fried fish, lamb barbacoa and cheesy oyster mushrooms; a side of rice and beans; chile relleno tacos during Sunday brunch.

Insider tip:

Is Vancouver a bridge too far? Drop by Little Conejo’s taco cart next to Prost German beer bar at 4237 N. Mississippi Ave., where you’ll also find other top food carts Matt’s BBQ, Pastrami Zombie, Caspian Kabob and more. Also of note: the spin-off Matt’s BBQ Taco cart at 3207 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd. uses Little Conejo tortillas as its gluten- and lard-free option.

39: STAMMTISCH

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The German food matches the impeccable tap list at Stammtisch. (The Oregonian/file)

401 N.E. 28th Ave.

503-206-7983

Dinner and late night, daily; lunch, Friday-Sunday

$$

When North Portland beer bar Prost opened its doors a decade ago, the beer list was faultless, but the food menu basic: pickles, pretzels, meat boards and the like. Five years later, when Prost co-owner Dan Hart took over this handsome brick building on Northeast 28th Avenue, the formula for Stammtisch could have been a replica. Instead, Hart tapped former St. Jack sous chef Graham Cheney to craft a menu to match the deeper selection of celebrated German lagers and rarities on tap at the new bar. Those include must-order snacks such as warm pretzels with mustard and half-melted schmaltz and paper trays of currywurst and shoestring fries. A date night meal would probably begin with maultaschen, the louche German ravioli, here dressed in butter and white wine. Depending on when you visit, there might be cool asparagus soup, riesling-braised trout draped across summer squash and cherry tomatoes, or schweinshaxe, a hulking roast ham hock wrapped in its own crunchy skin.

Order:

Pretzels, currywurst, wienerschnitzel and a frothy weiss beer or refreshing kölsch.

Insider tip:

Pay attention to the bottom of the beer list, where you might find barrel-aged sours, mellow IPAs and other signs of Germany’s modern beer scene.

38: ABYSSINIAN KITCHEN

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Balanced stews and tangy injera at Abyssinian Kitchen. (The Oregonian/file)

2625 S.E. 21st Ave.

503-894-8349

Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday

$$

This wasn’t the first Portland restaurant to push East African food beyond the buffet — Bete-Lukas (2504 S.E. 50th St.), with its white linen tablecloths and full bar, beat them to the punch by more than a decade. But so far, Abyssinian Kitchen has done it best. The restaurant, which took over the city’s only Cambodian-only eatery in 2015, serves the veggie stews and spiced meats of Ethiopia and Eritrea on big rolls of tangy injera, the teff-based flatbread. Abyssinian Kitchen, which seems to have added air conditioning in the past year or so, has a breezy front patio, a wide wooden bar and an intimate nook surrounded by earth-toned walls in the back. The kitchen does great work with berbere-spiced red lentils and atakilti alicha, a mellow cabbage, potato and carrot stew, but beef — both the rosemary-scented strips of grilled steak, peppers and onion called zilzil tibs and the bone-in short rib over stewed collard greens called siga and gomen — is the sneaky specialty.

Order:

One of the beef dishes and the beyaynetu sampler, with four vegetarian stews on spongy injera you can rip open with spice-stained fingers.

Insider tip:

Food doesn’t exactly fly out of Abyssinian’s kitchen. Start with some crisp, lentil-stuffed sambusas and a glass of honeyed wine or lemonade to pass the time.

37: CHIN'S KITCHEN

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Salad as mandala at Chin's Kitchen in Hollywood. (The Oregonian/file)

4126 N.E. Broadway

503-281-1203

Lunch and dinner, Tuesday-Sunday

$$

Chin's Kitchen is a 2-year-old Hollywood restaurant devoted to the relatively unheralded dishes of northeast China, specifically Harbin, the icy hometown of co-owner and manager Wendy Li. Northeastern Chinese cuisine isn’t exactly in high demand, even in China, and yet here, in a 70-year-old Chinese restaurant fronted by a large, animated neon sign, Li and her chefs fold thick-skinned dumplings, braise tender brisket stews and simmer pork belly and sauerkraut in a stoneware pot, that last a vaguely Teutonic nod to Harbin’s early position along the Trans-Siberian railway. (The city is also home to China's oldest brewery, built by a German immigrant to serve Russia's rail workers.) Dongbei food distinguishes itself with its aromatic spices and embrace of raw vegetables. The la pi, a sort-of noodle-vegetable salad, is a work of art, with hundreds of cucumber, carrot and purple cabbage matchsticks arranged around a pile of Cellophane-clear mung bean noodles under a handful of crispy red chiles and fresh cilantro. Toss this colorful mandala in its oil and vinegar dressing before eating.

Order:

The la pi makes a photogenic starter, and don’t sleep on the pork-stuffed eggplant. But if you order only one thing, make it the crisp, honey-sweet slices of Harbin-style sweet-and-sour pork.

Insider tip:

The GoFundMe page that Michael Mintz of Neon Gods PDX used to rehabilitate Chin’s Kitchen’s sign remains

.

36: NAVARRE

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Modern wine bars wish they could boast Navarre's longevity (The Oregonian/file)

10 N.E. 28th Ave.

503-232-3555

Dinner, daily; weekend brunch

$$

As half the hip new wine bars in town dream of presenting simple Mediterranean menus of scalloped potatoes, humble braises and trout baked in parchment paper, it’s worth noting that one Portland restaurant has been offering exactly that — plus an improbable number of wines by the glass — for years. Navarre, The Oregonian’s 2009 Restaurant of the Year, isn’t for everyone, but those who love it tend to love it deeply. Walk up the shallow ramp off Northeast 28th Avenue and you’ll be handed a marker and a pair of slim paper menus, one listing house standards, the other with specials. You can check off the standards as you would nigiri at a sushi joint, then write in a few extras from the specials menu. But your best bet is to forget the menus and check the $38 "We Choose" option, which will quickly overwhelm your table with 10 dishes and, for an additional $21, short pours of interesting wine. Meals tend to begin with glistening radishes, salted butter and a ziggurat of crusty bread before leading to olive-oil-poached albacore or rabbit quarters braised in a mellow mustard sauce. If you’re lucky, a towering slice of red velvet cake waits at the finish.

Order:

When available, Navarre’s supremely crab-stuffed crab cakes are a must.

Insider tip:

Nearby sister restaurant Luce (2140 E. Burnside St.) offers good pasta for a fair price. And for fans of crab cake Benedicts and sparkling rosé, Navarre’s weekend brunch remains an undiscovered gem.

35: OK OMENS

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Charred beets and beef tartare at OK Omens (Mark Graves | The Oregonian)

1758 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd.

503-231-9939

Dinner and late-night, daily

$$

The towering, tarragon-dressed butter lettuce salad at Cafe Castagna was the model against which all other Portland butter lettuce salads were invariably measured. In other words, OK Omens had some big green shoes to fill when it took over Cafe Castagna's space last year. Though it might not have the lineup of certified platinum dishes that its predecessor could boast, OK Omens certainly takes more risks. Consider the torito, a cheeky Caesar salad with chopped romaine, corn nuts and a sprinkling of cotija cheese in a creamy cilantro dressing that chef Justin Woodward calls an homage to a Mexican chain in Southern California. Woodward, who also helms the hushed tasting menu joint Castagna next door, just might be a closet junk food fan. Chicken liver mousse comes with pickles and toast, like a deconstructed banh mi sandwich. Buttermilk fried chicken is dusted with a numbing green peppercorn powder. Desserts include an uptown take on fast food shakes like the Blizzard or McFlurry.

Order:

At happy hour, when the new classic burger is discounted, and the torito comes with that gently numbing fried chicken.

Insider tip:

OK Omens’ secret weapon, sommelier Brent Braun, has crafted Portland’s funnest wine list, a natural-leaning collection of bottles, some with age, many at reasonable prices. Let him sell you something old and interesting.

34. ACADIA

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Two words to guide you at Acadia: barbecue shrimp. (The Oregonian/file)

1303 N.E. Fremont St.

503-249-5001

Lunch, Wednesday; dinner, Monday-Saturday

$$$

You need to know only two words about this Cajun/Creole restaurant at the edge of Irvington: barbecue shrimp. This decadent dish, Acadia’s update to a New Orleans’ classic, features head-on shrimp in a butter and white wine sauce. No, you won’t need a barbecue. But you will need extra bread to mop up the sauce. And that's not all chef Seamus Foran and his team can do. The gumbo and jambalaya are traditional and good. The Sazerac cocktails are too, even when they forget the lemon twist. Whole-fried soft-shell crabs feel dramatic even before you consider the hot pickled onions and black pepper ranch. At dessert, bread pudding is drowned in a bourbon-caramel sauce. But those barbecue shrimp are the best thing, better even than the peppery original at the 100-year-old Pascal's Manale, a classic New Orleans restaurant I first visited after indulging in Acadia’s version a half dozen times. There are plenty of reasons we should all visit New Orleans one more time before the final flood. But barbecue shrimp? Portland has that covered.

Order:

Did I mention the barbecue shrimp?

Insider tip:

On our visit, U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer walked in wearing leather sandals and carrying a bottle of wine (in you’re wondering, Acadia’s corkage is $30).

33. OLYMPIA PROVISIONS NW

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A Spanish charcuterie board from Olympia Provisions (The Oregonian/file)

1632 N.W. Thurman St.

503-894-8136

Lunch and dinner, daily; weekend brunch

$$$

One of the cooler aspects of Olympia Provisions, best known for the sausage produced under the same name, is the tucked-away locations of its flagship restaurants, chosen in part for the extra square footage required by their charcuterie program. The Southeast Portland original (107 S.E. Washington St.) has always felt like it was built inside a cool Brooklyn loft. The second restaurant, the one we’ve found ourselves drawn toward of late, is deep enough in Northwest Portland that it feels like a pleasant surprise each time you find it. Once known for its rotisserie chicken, Olympia Provisions NW has beefed up its seafood game under Eric Joppie, the former chef at Bar Avignon (2138 S.E. Division St.). So instead of getting a house charcuterie board, you can dive into a two-tiered tower of oysters, house lox, Dungeness crab Louie and a quintet of meats including sliced sausage, ham and pate.

Order:

Charcuterie, oysters, seared scallops, fresh sausages grilled over coal.

Insider tip:

Conceived at Clyde Common (1014 S.W. Harvey Milk St.), Olympia Provisions has gone on to spawn a trio of lightly Alpine-themed public houses, including one in Southeast Portland (3384 S.E. Division St.), an annex at Pine Street Market (126 S.W. Second Ave.) and one in Oregon City (1401 Washington St.).

32: HIGGINS

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The multi-tiered dining room at Higgins. (The Oregonian/file)

1239 S.W. Broadway

503-222-9070

Lunch, weekdays; dinner and late-night (in the bar), daily

$$$$

When Greg Higgins left The Heathman and headed up the hill, did he know he would open one of the Pacific Northwest's most influential restaurants? Launched in 1994 inside a former Broadway gentleman’s club, Higgins helped push Portland's farm-to-table movement into the 21st century. When morels or ramps are in season, Higgins is among the first places they land. The dining room, with its wood-paneled dining room, white tablecloths and menu of quality produce given a global twist, still evokes its ‘90s roots in ways that can feel either nostalgic or dated, depending on your perspective. The pig plate is a perennial favorite, a celebration of pork that might appear as Alsatian-style choucroute garnie one night, a Mexican-influenced posole the next. Fresh salmon paired with a slightly beyond-your-budget Oregon pinot noir remains an essential Pacific Northwest dining experience. But the bar is our real happy place, a perfect perch for eating charcuterie or a hearty bistro burger and picking out something Belgian from the beer lover's beer list.

Order:

Fish, the whole pig plate and wine in the dining room; charcuterie, deftly fried razor clams and craft beer at the bar.

Insider tip:

Higgins continues to live up to its hard-earned reputation as a craft beer destination. A couple of years ago, it was the first top 40 restaurant we found pouring a hazy IPA on tap.

31. BISTRO AGNES

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Cassoulet dreams, courtesy of Bistro Agnes. (Beth Nakamura | The Oregonian)

527 S.W. 12th Ave.

503-222-0979

Lunch and dinner, daily; weekend brunch

$$$

For their latest trick, Greg Denton and Gabrielle Quiñónez Denton, the celebrated chefs behind creative Argentine steakhouse Ox, gave Portland something it didn’t know it was missing: a classic French bistro in the bourgeois tradition. Executed at the high level the James Beard Award-winning duo have been known for since their days at the Pearl District’s Metrovino, Bistro Agnes is the place to come for bubbling onion soup gratinée capped with melted Gruyere, escargot and button mushrooms drowning in herb butter or a note-perfect cassoulet with slow-cooked duck, roasted pork belly, pork sausage and tender, meaty white beans. In some ways, it’s helpful to think of Bistro Agnes as a pendulum swing away from SuperBite, the couple’s high-profile Ox follow-up that closed after a year in this same space. No, Bistro Agnes isn’t as creative as that restaurant or Ox — there’s no bone-marrow clam chowder equivalent here — but the food can be just as delicious.

Order:

Salade niçoise (an ideal lunch), escargots, sole quenelles in lobster sauce, cassoulet, a pre-dinner drink at next door’s Kask (1215 S.W. Alder St.).

Insider tip:

The restaurant shares a name with Ox’s Dirty Grandma Agnes, a well-loved vodka-pickle martini that has found a place among the absinthe bottles here.

30. PALEY’S PLACE

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Northwest Portland's venerable Paley's Place has taken on a slight Russian accent of late (The Oregonian/file)

1204 N.W. 21st Ave.

503-243-2403

Dinner daily

$$$

Like Russian literature emerging from Gogol’s overcoat (

to borrow Dostoevsky’s quote

), much of Portland’s restaurant scene came out from Paley’s Place. The Northwest Portland restaurant, opened by James Beard Award-winning chef Vitaly Paley and wife, Kimberly, helped train a generation of Portland’s best chefs, including Gabriel Rucker of Le Pigeon, Ben Bettinger of Laurelhurst Market and many more. Nearly 25 years in, Paley’s Place, which takes up the main floor and spacious front porch of a stately Northwest Portland home, is still going strong. Charcuterie, fried sweetbreads and escargot bordelaise are still worth your attention, and few restaurants are more trustworthy with wild Oregon salmon or albacore. The menu has taken on a slight Russian accent of late, influenced by Paley's occasional Da Net pop-up and his Russian Tea Room experience at the Heathman Hotel, with dumplings or a savory borscht appearing on the menu alongside the pomme frites. With apologies to the Paleys’ trio of hotel restaurants — Imperial (410 S.W. Broadway), Headwaters (1001 S.W. Broadway) and the new Rosa Rosa (750 S.W. Alder St.) — Paley’s remains the place to go.

Order:

Charcuterie, escargots and bone marrow, crispy sweetbreads, salmon when available, Russian borscht or dumplings.

Insider tip:

Many of the appetizers and mains are available as half portions, a nod to a more modern, shareable (and affordable) style of dining.

29. POK POK

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In the Pok Pok empire, wings are still king. (The Oregonian/file)

3226 S.E. Division St.

503-232-1387

Lunch and dinner, daily

$$$

A friend reached out earlier this year after a confusing meal at Pok Pok’s Northeast Portland outlet. “The menu has completely changed,” he said. “What happened?” Turns out, the old Pok Pok Noi quietly converted into the city’s latest Pok Pok Wing location in April, a move that stripped away some of our friend’s favorite dishes and a few table-service niceties in favor of the pared-down model preferred by the fast-casual, uh, wing of the Thai restaurant mini empire. With Pok Pok now fully retrenched from its operations in New York and Los Angeles, the company sems sharply focused on its most successful and enduring dish, the crunchy, caramel-y, sticky, somewhat funky Ike’s Vietnamese fish sauce wings. They’re still good, though not always as crunchy or as spicy as you might remember, or prefer. For our purposes, Pok Pok’s original restaurant, built piecemeal inside a Southeast Division Street house, with a one-of-a-kind menu of Northern Thai street food dishes picked up by chef Andy Ricker on his travels through Southeast Thailand, remains more interesting than a wing chain any day.

Order:

Wings (ha!), fiery boar collar, lemongrass-stuffed roast game hen, fragrant cha ca La Vong — a supremely addictive Vietnamese catfish, noodle and herb dish stained with turmeric — plus condensed milk affogato with Chinese-style savory crullers for dessert.

Insider tip:

Two years ago, the Pok Pok family added a charming Northwest Portland location (1639 N.W. Marshall St.), most notable for the fact that it takes reservations.

28. LAURELHURST MARKET

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Is it time for Laurelhurst Market to take the next step? (Mark Graves | The Oregonian)

3155 E. Burnside St.

503-206-3097

Lunch (in the deli) and dinner, daily

$$$

A few years ago, we caught a glimpse of the future of American steakhouses here in the Pacific Northwest. No, it wasn’t in Portland. Instead, it was in Seattle, at the hip Capitol Hill restaurant Bateau. There, chef Renee Erickson serves dry-aged beef carved from single cows, piece by piece, with each cut crossed off the tall chalkboard menus just after it’s ordered. Portland’s Laurelhurst Market marked an earlier evolution, a modern steakhouse that ignored the overpriced and overrated filet mignon in favor of relatively inexpensive yet highly flavorful cuts such as teres major, hanger and bavette, then served them alongside creative starters, salads and sides. Laurelhurst Market has beefed up its menu over the past few years with more smoke and marrow under chef (and partner) Ben Bettinger. The charcuterie plate is a local favorite -- no surprise, given that Laurelhurst Market comes from the old Simpatica catering guys, who previously had a hand in Viande meats. Most steaks still hover just above $30, though some dry-aged options have crept above $50, still a pittance by an old-school steakhouse standard.

Order:

Charcuterie, fried oysters, Caesar salad, hanger steak (or a bone-in rib-eye if you’re feeling flush), the signature Smoke Signals cocktail.

Insider tip:

The deli isn’t just for show. At lunch, Laurelhurst Market serves some of our favorite sandwiches in Portland.

27. LOVELY'S FIFTY FIFTY

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Gently charred pizzas emerge from the wood-fired oven at Lovely's Fifty Fifty. (Noble Guyon | The Oregonian)

4039 N. Mississippi Ave.

503-281-4060

Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday

$$

If Portland has any chance of living up to the lofty, somewhat absurd title of “America’s greatest pizza city” bestowed on it by a self-proclaimed International Pizza Consultant last year, it lies with Lovely’s Fifty Fifty chef Sarah Minnick. Her formula is as simple as it is brilliant. Take wood-fired pizzas, add market-fresh seasonal produce and serve in a comfortable space with warm pink walls and an ice cream counter up front. What more do you need? Build your meals around a pizza or two topped with potatoes or bitter greens or wild mushrooms and a pungent cheese you have to Google, then work backward, adding shimmering olives, a savory white bean soup and a Little Gem salad tossed in a vibrant green goddess dressing. There’s usually a pizza with pancetta and another with fennel sausage, but meat is hardly an essential element of a night at Lovely’s Fifty Fifty. Is this the best pizzeria in Portland? Maybe not, but it is the favorite pizzeria of your friends with the backyard chickens and raised beds. And who’s to say they’re wrong?

Order:

Purgatorio bean soup, little gems, a couple of pies and a carafe of cool gamay noir.

Insider tip:

The front counter at Lovely’s Fifty Fifty holds some of the city’s best ice cream and soft serve. Grab some for the road.

26. NIMBLEFISH

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For sushi fans on a budget, Nimblefish has hand rolls. (Mark Graves | The Oregonian)

1524 S.E. 20th Ave.

503-719-4064

Dinner, daily

$$$

Restaurants don’t always get second chances. This one got a second, and a third. Nimblefish’s current iteration started life as the roving Fukami pop-up, itself a reawakening of Southeast Belmont Street sushi spot Hokusei. Nimblefish is also our pick for the best everyday sushi in Portland, second only to the “by appointment only” omakase at Nodoguro (see below) and just ahead of the similarly well-sourced fish at Zilla Sake (1806 N.E. Alberta St.). As always with good sushi, the key here is top-quality fish, treated well. Chefs Cody Auger and Dwight Rosendahl aim for Edomae sushi, a style developed in the pre-refrigerator 19th century that features smoking, fermentation, vinegared rice and other techniques designed to avoid spoilage. As you would expect at any of the world’s elite sushi restaurants, the specials list includes seafood flown fresh from the markets in Tokyo and Honolulu. But instead of a months-long waiting list for a $200 tasting menu, Nimblefish keeps its prices reasonable and holds its chef’s counter and communal table for walk-ins only.

Order:

Nigiri, with an emphasis on the daily specials.

Insider tip:

Nimblefish isn’t exactly cheap, but if you’re on a budget, try fashioning a light meal around a $6 hand roll or two.

25. XICO

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Xico has the highest ceiling of any midscale Mexican restaurant in Portland. (The Oregonian/file)

3715 S.E. Division St.

503-548-6343

Dinner, daily; lunch, Wednesday-Sunday

$$$

With the demise of Northeast Portland’s Autentica, Portland is left with just a handful of midscale Mexican restaurants: The margarita and carne asada powerhouse Nuestra Cocina (2135 S.E. Division St.), the big-tent boar carnitas revival at Taqueria Nueve (707 S.E. Washington St.) and the secret garden and skeletal decor at La Calaca Comelona (2304 S.E. Belmont St.) chief among them. Among those, Nuestra Cocina has the most consistent floor, but Xico, with its promise of scratch-made tortillas and perfectly balanced margaritas, has the highest ceiling. Xico went through a major change last year after chef Kelly Myers suffered a severe stroke while on a research trip to Oaxaca. Myers has yet to regain her mobility, but her former sous chef Kelly Towner continues to carry the torch, serving a familiar menu of tortilla chips with guacamole or the toasted pumpkin seed dip sikil p’ak, cheese-pull-worthy queso fundido stained red by chorizo and small platters of rich carnitas with salsas and fresh-pressed tortillas.

Order:

Chips with various salsas or dips, queso fundido, carnitas platter (or the carnitas burrito at lunch).

Insider tip:

Towner is flexing her own creative muscles at Xica Cantina, a new restaurant and mezcal bar at 1668 N.W. 23rd Ave. Early standouts include her take on the kitchen sink Mexican street snack Dorilocos and a whole trout painted with three salsas in a nod to Mexico CIty seafood destination Contramar.

24. APIZZA SCHOLLS

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Apizza Scholls makes Portland's best pizza. (The Oregonian/file)

4741 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd.

503-233-1286

Lunch, Saturday-Sunday; dinner, daily

$$

This is our pick for Portland’s best pizza, and has been since Brian Spangler started baking his New York-meets-Connecticut pies out in the Washington County crossroads of Scholls. Now stretched across two Hawthorne Boulevard storefronts in Southeast Portland, Apizza Scholls sees its waiting room fill up at the stroke of 5 p.m. with happy families angling for a roomy wood booth, a beer or soda and a crack at the vintage arcade games in the back. Brian Spangler's menu is simple and uncompromising: A spot-on Caesar salad. The right mix of olives and rosemary in olive oil. A balanced summer caprese salad drizzled in balsamic. And that's before you even get to the pizza. These are East Coast-style pies, thin, wide and crispy, with both red and white sauce options and an array of toppings. Solo, I'll get a green olive and salami personal pizza at the bar and watch a game amid the San Francisco Giants memorabilia. With friends, we'll order as many of the classics as we can — split pies of New York White and Tartufo Bianco, Apizza Amore (with capicola) and Amatriciana (with bacon), perhaps — and see if we can eat a slice of each before we quit.

Order:

The salami and green olive pie beckons.

Insider tip:

We’ll probably regret mentioning this, but Apizza Scholls does take a limited number of reservations online.

23. TORO BRAVO

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At Toro Bravo, the paella is fine, the vibe is second to none. (Michael Russell | The Oregonian)

120 N.E. Russell St.

503-281-4464

Dinner, daily

$$$

Each new year brings fresh concern that Portland’s most popular Spanish restaurant has lost a step. Yet judging by the lines, which can run to an hour-plus even on a random Tuesday, Toro Bravo is as ageless as Paul Rudd. Opened by former Simpatica chef John Gorham in 2007, the restaurant has maintained an infectious energy that lasts deep into the night (or its Portland equivalent: 10 p.m.). Squint and you could almost be in Madrid. The food is as big and loud as the crowd, with signature bacon-wrapped dates, patatas bravas and jamon croquettes, much of it scattered with salt and drizzled with oil. We’ve never been crazy about the paella, and indeed, some of the best dishes here are the simplest, the seared scallops with fennel salad over simple romesco or the cut of fine Iberian pork cooked gently in a wood-fired oven. Lately, some of our favorite meals have been taken at the high tables up front, with a few fun bites paired with a glass of rioja or a big goblet of gin and tonic. No, this isn’t Portland’s best Spanish restaurant. For creativity and execution, Ataula (see below) eclipsed Toro Bravo a few years ago. But it’s the one that best understands how to give the city what it wants.

Order:

Bacon-wrapped dates, tortilla con amor, salt cod fritters, Iberian pork, lamb chops.

Insider tip:

Toro Bravo spawned a small empire of restaurants for Gorham, including Mediterranean Exploration Company (333 N.W. 13th Ave.), two locations of Shalom Y’all (117 S.E. Taylor St. and 1128 S.W. Alder St.)

22. TUSK

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Meals at Tusk require hummus and flatbread. (The Oregonian/file)

2448 E. Burnside St.

503-894-8082

Dinner daily, weekend brunch

$$

Of all the dinners we’ve eaten at this white-walled Middle Eastern(ish) restaurant, our favorites have all been ones when our vegetarian friends did the ordering. In part, that demonstrates the restaurant’s unease with meat — meals that lean too heavily on Tusk’s skewers or other hearty fare tend to fall flat. But it also speaks to chef Sam Smith’s way with vegetables, and how a bowl of snow peas, fennel and walnuts dressed in honey and Aleppo pepper — a salad, essentially — can be one of the best things you eat that week. Best of all is the weekend brunch, which might include a mezze-style plate of fruits, cheeses, yogurt and bread or a slice of pistachio-topped gooey butter cake with some cardamom-scented Proud Mary coffee. Our most persistent Portland dining wish would be for Tusk to expand its breakfast hours to seven days a week. No matter when you visit, the creamy hummus and whole-grain flatbread and a sweet bite from pastry chef Nora Mace (née Antene) are musts.

Order:

Hummus and flatbread, a veggie dish or three, a seasonal fruit sundae or some honey baklava from Mace.

Insider tip:

On weekends, Tusk bridges the gap between brunch and dinner with an affordable happy hour.

21. JACQUELINE

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Regulars plan their visits to coincide with Jacqueline's $1 oyster happy hour. (The Oregonian/file)

2039 S.E. Clinton St.

503-327-8637

Dinner, Monday-Saturday

$$$

Like the reference to the underrated Wes Anderson movie ("The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou") from which it takes its name, Jacqueline is full of pleasant surprises. The restaurant, which took over the original St. Jack space in 2016, has found the right balance between kitchen creativity and neighborhood friendliness. Most regulars time their visits to the generous 5-7 p.m. happy hour, when Pacific Northwest oysters are just $1. Pair a dozen oysters with a glass of white wine and the glorious Dungeness crab toast, with its golden griddled bread, plump crab, Calabrian chiles and saffron hollandaise, and you have a solid start to the night. But Jacqueline also rewards more thorough exploration, from the peel-and-eat spot prawns with fermented chile butter to the whole fried sea bass bathed in a cashew salsa macha. Three years in, this is now Portland’s most interesting seafood restaurant, and one of our favorite date-night destinations as well.

Order:

Happy hour oysters, Dungeness crab toast, peel-and-eat spot prawns, whole sea bass.

Insider tip:

Don’t miss the assortment of vinegars and hot sauces that come with your oysters.

20. TRIFECTA

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Key lime pies shine at Ken Forkish's Trifecta (Mark Graves | The Oregonian)

726 S.E. Sixth Ave.

503-841-6675

Dinner, daily

$$$

To get the most out of Trifecta, the close-in Southeast Portland bakery and tavern from Ken’s Artisan Bakery owner Ken Forkish, you must embrace happy hour, which runs from opening until 6 p.m. daily. That’s when the 5-year-old restaurant serves Northwest oysters on the half shell for $1.50, deviled eggs for $4, a messy-good pimento double cheeseburger for $10 and a meal-sized steak frites for $18. Founding chef Rich Meyer left Trifecta last year to become team chef for the Portland Timbers. In his place: former Clyde Common chef Chris DiMinno, whose approach seems most obvious in a handful of new pastas (none have reached the level of the fried oyster sliders or ham and hot rolls quite yet, though the Dungeness crab and Calabrian chile spaghettini is hard to pass up). House bread and classic desserts have been Trifecta specialties since day one. Recently, the hot fudge sundae has taken a back seat to the key lime pie with a graham cracker crust and a smooth cap of browned Italian meringue.

Order:

Oysters, pimento double cheeseburger, steak frites, key lime pie.

Insider tip:

That happy hour features the city’s most balanced $7 Negroni.

19. RENATA

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Pastas remain the focus under Renata co-owner (and chef) Sandra Arnerich (The Oregonian/file)

626 S.E. Main St.

503-954-2708

Dinner, daily

$$$

Renata began with the dream of a warm, friendly Italian restaurant built around great service, fantastic wine and unbeatable pasta. Five years later, as you nibble on marinated olives or vivacious charcuterie while surrounded by lemon balm on the sunny patio, it’s clear the dream is still alive. It’s been a turbulent couple of years at Renata, with two prominent chef changes and an extended departure for co-owner Nick Arnerich, who has dealt with serious back issues. The kitchen continues to hum today under Sandra Arnerich, Nick’s wife and a former cook turned front-of-house star at celebrated Bay Area restaurants The French Laundry and Benu. On our most recent visit, Renata’s menu continued its focus on wood-fired pizzas, decadent pastas and meaty mains. A puttanesca was perhaps a bit overloaded with cod and other ingredients, but the squid-ink-blackened corzetti with clams and spicy ground sausage was as good as ever, each disc dotted with fine breadcrumbs and dripping with rich sauce. Save room for the spumoni sundae with pistachios, brownie bits and amarena cherries.

Order:

Marinated olives, any pasta, grilled pork, olive oil cake or spumoni sundae.

Insider tip:

Many of the restaurants found on this list are surprisingly kid-friendly. But how many offer a separate $15, three-course tasting menu with grilled chicken, butter noodles and a scoop of gelato just for youngsters?

18. NED LUDD

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Meals at Ned Ludd is no laughing matter (The Oregonian/file)

3925 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

503-288-6900

Dinner, daily

$$$

It’s tempting to use Ned Ludd, with its rustic-glam decor, wood-fired menu and “American Craft Kitchen” tagline, as a punchline,

. The only problem? The food emerging from the brick oven here is as strong as it’s been in recent memory, from the vibrant pickles at the start to the smoke-kissed chocolate chip cookie skillet with vanilla-scented milk at dessert. Depending on when you visit, you might find fresh salads, roasted veggies and a whole roasted trout on a bed of caramelized and charred leek, all served in a dining room filled with copper pots and old-timey chandeliers. When we dropped by this spring, seasonal riffs included slices of juicy pork under peak strawberries, shaved asparagus and pickled mustard seeds and the ideal version of cheesy mushroom toast, with charred levain, wild mushrooms, melted brie and a drizzle of grape syrup. Restaurants named for folk heroes with antlers in the dining room might sound like a joke. But the cooking at Ned Ludd is no laughing matter.

Order:

Mushroom-brie toast, oven-roasted trout, pork, chocolate chip cookie in a skillet.

Insider tip:

The nearby Grain & Gristle (1473 N.E. Prescott St.) serves a more casual pub menu in a similarly rustic space with a lineup of Upright beers.

17. HOLDFAST DINING

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Dishes at Holdfast Dining are a feast for the eyes. (The Oregonian/file)

2131 S.E. 11th Ave.

503-504-9448

Dinner, Thursday-Sunday

$$$$

To paraphrase a line from cinema classic “Jurassic Park,” chefs Will Preisch and Joel Stocks were so preoccupied with whether they

could

, they didn't stop to think if they

should

. Five years after opening as a stripped-down pop-up at culinary incubator Kitchen Cru, the chefs have brought back a bit of pomp at their new home. Here, in the former Tennessee Red’s bar space shared with sister cocktail lounge Deadshot, diners have more flexibility, both in their beverage choices — consider pre-gaming with a crystal-clear daiquiri next door — and with staggered start times. The former Park Kitchen chefs have a way with fatty fish, sometimes mackerel, more recently black cod with onions prepared many ways, as a purée, as little charred petals and as a skeletal cross section of a chip. Uni-tinged Dungeness crab might come under a crust texturally halfway between a pot pie and a Chinese dumpling. Beautifully pink steak could come with a beyond-rich truffle sauce and a half-collapsed Yorkshire pudding. Some things stay the same, particularly late in the meal: The dark, Boston-by-way-of-Iceland steamed rye bread; the honey-yogurt shave ice spiral; and the dainty cornbread madeleine topped with a sugar cube, finely grated Parmesan and a sheet of lardo are almost always there, and always welcome.

Order:

The only option, a $140 set-price dinner that includes wine or nonalcoholic drink pairings.

Insider tip:

Every month or so, Holdfast plays host to Fimbul, an Icelandic pop-up complete with dandelion and dung-smoked fish.

16. BEAST

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Michael Russell | The Oregonian

5425 N.E. 30th Ave.

503-841-6968

Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday; Sunday brunch

$$$$

Conceptually, Beast is among Portland's most important contributions to modern American dining, a fixed-price restaurant with thrift store china, communal tables and foie gras bonbons. Born from the wreckage of Ripe, Naomi Pomeroy’s early 2000s supper club turned restaurant group that sought to “kill the restaurant,” Beast spent its first decade going from an Oregonian’s dream of a Paris dinner party to a national destination, the first place high rollers in black SUVs hit after landing at PDX. This year, the restaurant added something novel: A lower-cost Tuesday alternative, open to walk-ins, with a menu that changes about once a month and is offered for as little as $65 a person, including tip. That was the price on the Tuesday we visited for this year’s review, and it didn’t disappoint. With Pomeroy herself in the house, the meal started with some decent gougeres and a great brioche roll with a weirdly compelling compound butter packed with more greens than a wheatgrass shot. The main was a remarkably good chicken cordon bleu, with juicy white meat wrapped in a frizzy golden fry and some properly melted gruyere at the core. For dessert? A dynamite olive oil cake with strawberries tossed in elderflower syrup, strawberry sauce and little slivers of dehydrated rhubarb.

Order:

On Tuesdays.

Insider tip:

Expatriate, the dimly lit lounge owned by Pomeroy and husband Kyle Linden Webster sits across the street at 5424 N.E. 30th Ave. and is home to some of the city’s best cocktails and bar snacks.

15. AVA GENE’S

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Pastry chef Nora Antene's fabulous tiramisu changes with the seasons. (Michael Russell | The Oregonian)

3377 S.E. Division St.

971-229-0571

Dinner, daily

$$$$

Back in 2007, chef Joshua McFadden was working at a Brooklyn restaurant where, according to The New York Times, the Wisconsin-born chef created the modern kale salad. Does it surprise anyone that, less than five years later, McFadden had moved to Portland and opened a farm-to-table restaurant of his own? Ava Gene’s, opened with Stumptown founder Duane Sorenson but now owned outright by McFadden’s Submarine Hospitality group, based its reputation on vegetables, many served raw, all fresh and in season. Visit this summer, and the kitchen might be frying squash blossoms in a shroud of light batter or shaving ricotta salata over zucchini and toasted hazelnuts. Earlier this year, Ava Gene’s said goodbye to both chef de cuisine Ross Effinger and pasta expert JoMarie Pitino — the husband and wife went east to open a Joseph pizzeria — but pastas remain a strength under prodigal son Bill Wallender. Focus your attention on carbs, as meat-based mains have never been the restaurant’s strong suit. Creamy cavatelli tossed with pork sausage crumbles and broccoli both green and purple are a consistent highlight.

Order:

Squash blossom or calamari fritti, sheep’s cheese and fava bean pane, a salad or two, a pasta or three, especially the cavatelli. Is pastry chef Nora Mace’s strawberry tiramisu hanging around the menu? You know what to do.

Insider tip:

Later this year, McFadden & Co. plan to open Cicoria, a 75-seat pizzeria in the former Roman Candle space next door. Could Mace debut Ava Gene’s house gelato around the same time?

14. DAVENPORT

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Simplicity rules the day at Davenport. (The Oregonian/file)

2215 E. Burnside St.

503-236-8747

Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday

$$

In 2013, longtime Portland chef Kevin Gibson left his beloved sandwich and small plates shop Evoe to take a gamble on a full-fledged restaurant on East Burnside Street. The move has paid off. Here, Gibson and co-owner Kurt Heilemann oversee a softly lit room, a place where locals linger over a fritto misto made from cardoons or squash blossoms or whatever else is popping at the farmers market, and a glass or three of glorious wine. Over the years, Gibson has stripped his cooking down to the essentials, leaving a menu of deceptively simple dishes with an array of international influences. You’ll often find scallops, perhaps as a crudo of creamy white medallions drizzled with olive oil and lemon and laureled with a brittle roast sea vegetable that crackles with each bite. Anchovy and crumbled hard-boiled egg climb the side of charred little gem lettuce like salmon swimming upstream. Buttermilk fried quail with a thick-cut fennel and wild mushroom slaw is almost impossibly dainty.

Order:

Oysters, scallops, the city's best fritto misto, buttermilk fried quail and a suggestion for a perfect wine.

Inside tip:

The odd-couple friction between Gibson’s orderly kitchen and Heilemann’s rowdy bar sometimes threatens to upend the restaurant’s carefully calibrated existence, particularly during Portland’s Dining Month’s bittersweet annual scourge.

13. NOSTRANA

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Stephanie Yao Long/staff

1401 S.E. Morrison St.

503-234-2427

Lunch, Monday-Friday; dinner, daily

$$$

There's a reason this Southeast Portland Italian restaurant has a wall filled with accolades, including a half-dozen James Beard Award nominations and The Oregonian's 2006 Restaurant of the Year honor. Chef Cathy Whims and her team serve fine-tuned salads, drool-inducing Neapolitan pizzas, grilled meats and faithful Italian pastas inspired by the late Italian cookbook author Marcella Hazan in one of the city’s most dramatic dining rooms. Order the Insalata Nostrana, which keeps the best attributes of a Caesar (the dressing, Parmesan and croutons) but ditches romaine in favor of spicy red radicchio. It pairs well with a Negroni, the restaurant's signature cocktail. Pastas, perhaps some skinny capellini in Hazan’s tomato-butter sauce or the “paglia e fieno” (straw and hay) with morels in a light cream sauce, can be excellent, as they were on our most recent review meal, or a little flabby — the distinction, truth be told, between an excellent Nostrana meal and a merely good one. Beautifully blistered pizzas are a secret weapon, particularly the seasonal special topped with lump crab and crème fraîche. Meats all have their merits, from the salt-crusted lamb, to the smoky rotisserie chicken to a grilled pork chop over polenta dripping with sweet cherries.

Order:

Insalata Nostrana, pasta, pork, a big steak or, after 9 p.m., the $7 fork-and-knife margherita pizza.

Insider tip:

Speaking of great Negronis, next-door sister bar Enoteca Nostrana (1401 S.E. Morrison St.), with its two-story wine cellar and decor inspired by Milan's Memphis movement, has a great one. And if you time your visit right, Nostrana sommelier Austin Bridges might be in the house pouring a flight of interesting Italian wines.

12. KACHKA

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Lamb skewers and flatbread at Kachka. (The Oregonian/file)

960 S.E. 11th Ave.

503-235-0059

Dinner and late night, daily

$$$

Last year, the restaurant that taught America that Russian food was cool -- mayo, bony fish and all -- moved out of its original home to a big box in the Goat Blocks Development eight blocks away. The new, larger kitchen allowed Kachka to expand the menu, going deeper into breads and skewers, or both. Georgian-style cheesy bread impaled on a thick metal skewer and cooked on a live-fire grill, or mangal, is one of the more interesting new dishes. The shotgun original location stayed open, rebranding as Kachinka and offering a streamlined menu of vodka, dumplings and punny bar snacks such as the Vladimir poutine and the Red October, a (meatball) sub. The new space doesn’t quite feel lived-in yet, and not every new dish has been an instant hit. Finely minced lamb studded with green almond, topped with a patch of fried onion and surrounded by a moat of green yolk sauce was a fun spin on tartare. But a salmon crudo with lingonberry ice lacked punch, with too-thin slips of cold fish over bitter, watery ice. The classics remain classics, from the beef, pork and veal pelmeni dumplings to the restaurant’s most Instagrammed dish, and one that’s only available at new Kachka: herring under a fur coat, a Russian “seven-layer dip” of pickled fish, potato, carrot, beet, onion, mayo and sieved egg.

Order:

Herring under a fur coat, lamb tartare, khachapuri shashlik (skewered cheesy bread). Head to Kachinka for flavored vodkas and pelmeni.

Insider tip:

Later this summer, Kachka plans to open a Russian deli and vodka-tasting room, Lavka, on the new restaurant’s mezzanine.

11. ROSE VL

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Chicken and bamboo shoot soup at the great Rose VL. (The Oregonian/file)

6424 S.E. Powell Blvd.

503-206-4344

Breakfast and lunch, Monday-Saturday

$

Rose VL, the unassuming Vietnamese destination from Ha (Christina) Luu and William Vuong, serves two meticulous soups, six days a week. The couple, who made their harrowing journey to the United States after the Vietnam War, spent a decade building their menu from a single soup to a dozen and more at Ha VL (2738 S.E. 82nd Ave., #102), the restaurant they handed over to their second son, Peter Vuong, in 2015. By that deliberate standard, the past few years at Rose VL have been particularly fecund creatively, with new soups appearing as specials on nearly every visit. Most notably, that includes cao lầu, a subtly sweet noodle and pork dish that you toss with herbs to reveal a rich, porky sauce beneath. Luu and Vuong believe theirs is the only restaurant in America to serve this banger, which hails from the picturesque central Vietnamese town of Hoi An. The cao lầu joined the already stacked Saturday lineup of burnt orange mi quang noodles with pork and shrimp under a shower of ground pork and roasted peanuts and a graceful turmeric curry filled with pale, round noodles, big chunks of carrot and potato and tender bone-in chicken. Not to be outdone, Ha VL has added a few new soups of its own, including an excellent soupy bo kho, beef stew served with fat white noodles as a Wednesday special.

Order:

On a Saturday, when Rose VL offers its earthy mi quang noodles, fragrant turmeric curry and inimitable cao lầu.

Insider tip:

Vuong and Luu, who are in the process of handing over Rose VL to fifth son Steve Vuong and daughter-in-law Helen Huynh,

.

10. OX

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Octopus and tripe in a rich tomato stew at Ox. (The Oregonian/file)

2225 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

503-284-3366

Dinner, daily

$$$

Crowds come to Greg Denton and Gabrielle Quiñónez Denton's Argentine-inspired blockbuster not just for the fish, sausages and mid-rare meats sizzling on its wood-fired grill, but also for the handful of dishes that have become household names for Portland food lovers: the bone-marrow clam chowder, the beef tongue with horseradish, the tripe and octopus. Even if you arrive late, or fail to snag one of Ox’s newly released reservations, you might be able to grab a seat at that grill counter, watch the fireworks and tuck into the mixed Asado Argentino, a platter of short rib, skirt steak, chorizo, blood sausage, sweetbreads, fried potatoes and salad. It’s meant for two, though it’s probably better suited for three, a fact that might diminish any sticker shock from the now $94 price tag. (Still, $27 did feel like too much for a small order of tough, bone-in short rib.) The menu doesn’t change much, but several dishes, including the heirloom hominy with an olive-oil-fried duck egg or the smoked beef tongue with sweetbread croutons, reward revisiting, even when the duck egg is a bit over-fried or the tongue is somewhat dry. And we’re still suckers for Ox's desserts, particularly the hazelnut brown butter torte with delicate chamomile ice cream and stick-to-your-teeth honeycomb candy.

Order:

Bone marrow clam chowder, tripe and octopus stew, the Asado Argentino, a pickle-vodka Dirty Grandma Agnes martini or the beet juice and bourbon Ox Blood cocktail, hazelnut brown butter torte.

Insider tip:

Yes, you read that right. Ox started taking (limited) reservations this year, though if you want a time earlier than 9:15 p.m., you’re going to have to plan a few weeks in advance.

9. HAN OAK

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511 N.E. 24th Ave.

971-255-0032

Dinner, Friday-Monday

$$

You’ve probably heard about Han Oak, the modern Korean restaurant built in the living room of chef Peter Cho and Sun Young Park’s real life home. You might have heard about the way Cho and Park’s family is woven into the fabric of the restaurant. And you might even know that Han Oak was The Oregonian’s 2017 Restaurant of the Year. Cho, a Springfield native, earned his stripes in New York under celebrity chef April Bloomfield, eventually becoming chef de cuisine at The Breslin, her Ace Hotel restaurant. Meals at Han Oak are inspired in part by Cho’s late-night wanderings through Manhattan’s vertical Korea Town, and by Bloomfield’s influence (dishes tend to be delicious, for one thing). Banchan, the sides served gratis at most Korean restaurants, are $5 each at Han Oak, but continue to grow more fun, interesting and vital each year. Our favorite dishes often reveal themselves to be clever riffs on Korean street food, particularly the sort you might pair with soju under a tented stall somewhere in Seoul. Fried wings blasted with the “essence of instant ramen” are as close to the shatter-crisp ideal of a Korean fried-chicken joint as you can find in Portland. Han Oak’s pork and chive dumplings, served with black vinegar and ginger ala global dumpling chain Din Tai Fung, are better than most traditional mandu. If it's your first time, try to score a seat in the courtyard, and sink into the vibe with a "kimchilada," a Korean spin on the spicy Mexican beer cocktail.

Order: Soondae (blood sausage), Korean fried chicken wings, spicy rice cake ramen, all of the dumplings, a cocktail or two.

Insider tip: Stay late enough, and Peter Cho will probably show off his version of the bottle cap challenge: opening a beer can with the snap of a dish towel.

8. ST. JACK

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Duck a l'orange, St. Jack style. (The Oregonian/file)

1610 N.W. 23rd St.

503-360-1281

Dinner and late night (in the bar), daily; Sunday brunch

$$$$

Five years after moving from its original Southeast Clinton Street home to more a polished space on Northwest 23rd Avenue, St. Jack feels fully adapted to its new neighborhood. Originally inspired by the wine-heavy snout-to-tail bouchons of Lyon, chef Aaron Barnett is slowly attempting to add more influence from his recent trips to Paris. You'll still find jiggly bone marrow and huge flaps of crackling pork rinds and tablier de sapeur, the thin, golden-fried pieces of tripe meant for dipping in a capered mayonnaise. The cheese menu still holds d’Affinois and its accurate descriptor, “fat, fatty, fat.” And you’ll still want to start with a salad, especially the simple butter lettuce with avocado and fines herbes, all the better to lay a base for the excesses to come. But there’s also tinned fish on a plate in the style of modern wine bars, chilled poached prawns with vadouvan aioli and roasted halibut in an elegant Meyer lemon beurre blanc. If you saved room, there might be a grapefruit tart with orange blossom meringue or a bowl of baked-to-order madeleines waiting, still warm to the touch, under a shower of powdered sugar. Let the food coma commence.

Order:

Butter lettuce salad, chilled prawns or albacore crudo, fried tripe, pork rinds, mussels, steak frites, madeleines and, during the new Sunday brunch, a Calvados-soaked cinnamon roll.

Insider tip:

For a fresh spin on modern, globally inspired French cooking from the St. Jack team, visit Scotch Lodge (215 S.E. Ninth Ave.), a subterranean cocktail den owned by longtime Barnett conspirator Tommy Klus.

7. CASTAGNA

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A beet chip claw clutching beef tartare at Castagna. (Michael Russell | The Oregonian)

1752 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd.

503-231-7373

Dinner, Wednesday-Saturday

$$$$

Every city of a certain size and affluence seems to have a place like Castagna, a hushed, progressive restaurant with a highly trained chef who caters to a mostly well-heeled audience. Portland is lucky to have this one. In charge are longtime restaurateur Monique Siu, who has shaped Portland's dining scene since her days at Zefiro, and chef Justin Woodward, who transforms ingredients both luxurious and unusual into the city’s most challenging, intriguing tasting menu. If Michelin stars were awarded in Portland, Castagna would be a lock for one, and maybe sniff two. More important is the impeccable technique, smooth service and the thought behind sommelier Brent Braun's wine list. At $165, the chef’s tasting menu is a relative value, at least considering the level of cooking, starting with a series of clever snacks (the claw of a beet chip clutching beef tartare is a frequent highlight) and running to 20-odd courses. This year, Castagna began offering a less expensive themed menu, with six-courses for $75, replacing a $55 weekday option that pulled dishes from the chef’s tasting. The first theme, "Surf and Turf," displayed interesting ideas, including the squid-ink blackened brioche soldiers with anchovy aioli and the mussels, sea beans and onion resting on a plate lined with scrubbed mussel shells. And Braun can find fun wines at any price point. But other dishes seemed like they might be more at home at OK Omens, the casual sister wine bar next door (see above), including a rich congee with glazed strips of pork belly and a beached-sea-creature-like hunk of charred pork jowl and lettuce. Taken as a whole, the meal felt more like a scratchpad than a proper introduction to the restaurant, or to modern fine-dining generally.

Order:

If it’s your first time visiting Castagna, and you can afford it, skip the themed menu in favor of the longer tasting.

Insider tip:

Castagna lost talented pastry chef Geovanna Salas to Chicago’s two-Michelin-starred Smythe restaurant this year, but you can expect desserts to stay strong under Woodward and his team.

6. LE PIGEON

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The Natural: Chef Gabriel Rucker at Le Pigeon. (The Oregonian | file)

738 E. Burnside St.

503-546-8796

Dinner, daily

$$$$

One of the most important restaurants to open in the Pacific Northwest in the past two decades and a key factor in Portland’s rise from dining desert to top American food city, Le Pigeon serves an elevated menu that’s about as French as its name. (If you’re saying “Le Pidgyohn,” you’re doing it wrong). On a slow night, you can still walk in, snag a coveted seat at the L-shaped chef’s counter and order a burger and a Coors. What other restaurant at this level can claim that? But don’t stop there. Gabriel Rucker, Le Pigeon’s preternaturally talented two-time James Beard Award-winning chef, remains a creative force, regularly turning over the menu with his team here while overseeing new dishes at the two other restaurants he runs with partner and wine expert Andy Fortgang, downtown’s Little Bird Bistro (215 S.W. Sixth Ave.) and next door’s Canard (see below). Recent highlights included the mussels scampi, an Italian-Thai mashup of spaghetti and mussels in a green curry sauce that was just spicy enough to keep you guessing, and a deeply bronzed pigeon with sprouted barley, pickled elderberries and sake-creamed morels. (We’re still hitting ourselves for not ordering the lobster-stuffed fried chicken when it was on the menu.)

Order:

Regulars focus their attention on the left side of the menu, where the creative starters live, though one of Le Pigeon’s most enduring dishes, a beef cheek bourguignon that undergoes an annual reinvention, lives on the right.

Insider tip:

Not sure where to start? Le Pigeon offers two tasting menus, five course for $85 or seven for $105 (wine pairings $45/$85).

5. NODOGURO

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Japan's catch of the day makes its way to Oregon at Nodoguro. (The Oregonian/file)

2832 S.E. Belmont St.

Dinner, Wednesday-Sunday

$$$$

This wildly exclusive Southeast Portland restaurant serves its creative Japanese tasting menus “by appointment only” to 16 lucky diners a night, five nights a week. Yes, Nodoguro is home to Portland’s best sushi, most of it featuring fish flown in from the markets in Japan. But chef Ryan and partner Elena Roadhouse’s real passion lies with their Supahardcore nights, a seasonal, $195 omakase highlighting dishes both cooked and raw, typically featuring some sublimely marbled A5 Wagyu beef from Japan and culminating in a flight of flawless nigiri. With its bamboo chef’s counter and intimate dining room screened off from the street, eating at Nodoguro can feel like visiting another world. An off-kilter vibe carried from the reception to the food, with skinny somen noodles supporting chewy abalone and a spring of junsai, a memorably slimy vegetable available only in late spring. One dish, a small bowl of uni-morel risotto, some slow-simmered sea urchin used in place of cheese, reminded us that the Roadhouses are working on turning their pop-up jazz cafe Peter Cat into a more casual (by their exacting standards) izakaya in the former Accanto space next door. But the highlight of any Supahardcore meal is the kaiseki-style Hassun, a tray of tiny delights that might include A5 tartare with caviar and gold leaf, daikon-wrapped spot prawn in apricot vinegar and the best monkfish liver you’ve ever had.

Order:

If you can afford it, the $195 Supahardcore menu is a singular Portland dining experience.

Insider tip:

To snag a reservation, sign up from Nodoguro’s mailing list, wait for the email notice and have your credit card ready.

4. LANGBAAN

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Black curry and a black-gloved hand at Langbaan. (Michael Russell | The Oregonian)

6 S.E. 28th Ave.

971-344-2564

Dinner, Thursday-Sunday

$$$$

There was a time, not long after Earl Ninsom first swung open the false bookshelf on this back-room Thai restaurant, when Langbaan might have offered the best tasting menu value in America. That was 2013, when tickets were $40 a head. The overall course progression remains about the same today, starting with prawns and grapefruit wrapped in bitter betel leaf or diver scallops and coconut cream cradled in a crispy rice cup that collapses on the tongue. But what a difference a few years make. The restaurant, now priced at a still-reasonable $95, with reservations that book up months in advance, has evolved as much as any in Portland. Instead of citrus-bright seafood salads and smooth curries cribbed from Bangkok’s once Michelin-starred Nahm, Langbaan’s dishes are developed by a team of highly trained, mostly non-Thai cooks, led by chef de cuisine Brandon Hirahara. Rather than focus on a specific region, menus have become more conceptual. On our visit, that meant food inspired by family gatherings. Highlights included a fragrant braised pig’s feet soup with beans and bitter melon in a sweet soy broth and a stunning black curry made from ya nang leaf that came with seared halibut, kabocha squash and a gritty relish of pungent shrimp paste, duck egg and lump crab. The centerpiece was a whole suckling pig with crackling skin like oil-soaked butcher paper. Pastry chef Maya Erickson pulled the pig apart on the counter with black-gloved hands, then turned her attention to a pair of desserts: an incense-smoked flan with blackberries and a melange of melons both balled and iced.

Order:

Reservations, three months in advance.

Insider tip:

Want to roll back the clock? Ninsom’s spin-off restaurant Hat Yai, which began life as a southern Thai-themed menu at Langbaan, serves phenomenal curries and fried chicken tossed in shallots from two locations, 1605 N.E. Killingsworth St. and 605 S.E. Belmont St.

3. COQUINE

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If a dessert at Coquine features meringue (like this seasonal pavlova), order it at once. (The Oregonian/file)

6839 S.E. Belmont St.

503-384-2483

Dinner, Wednesday-Sunday; breakfast and lunch, daily

$$$

Is there anything Coquine can’t do? Earlier this year, the Mount Tabor-side restaurant launched a Monday-only pasta night, serving four enchanting pastas from chef Katy Millard with lively wine pairings from partner Ksandek Podbielski for a little over a month. During that short run, for one day a week, Coquine was the best pasta restaurant in Portland. Millard, who spent six years cooking at top restaurants in France, has a habit of making superlative food, whether that’s during the casual breakfast or lunch or a more refined five-night-a-week dinner service. On quieter nights (try Thursday or Sunday), you can still drop in and land a seat on the patio or at the bar, where you might tuck into some Roman-style fried artichokes with almond aioli or a simple bowl of shell-shaped lumachine pasta tossed in a milk-braised pork sugo. Most days, you’re better off making a reservation, either for an a la carte dinner or a four- or seven-course tasting menu ($68 or $100, respectively). Millard has a way with vegetables, coaxing maximum flavor out of asparagus or carrots, snap peas or mushrooms. Portland’s other vegetable-focused restaurants should take notes. Coquine's mains manage to hold your attention with strong execution, particularly on the ruby-centered rack of lamb. Podbielski's service matches the cooking with nerdy-great wine picks and unexpected fine-dining touches: soups poured tableside, trays of rare spirits or candies including olive oil marshmallows or warm chocolate chip cookies brought dim sum-style to finish. Coquine, our 2016 Restaurant of the Year, does nothing by half measures.

Order:

Chicken liver mousse, a vegetable dish or two, the rack of lamb, a meringue-based dessert or cake and a quick peek at the dessert tray.

Insider tip:

Coquine makes our dream cookie, a chocolate chip, smoked almond and caramel number that seems to have just come out of the oven every time you want one.

2. ATAULA

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The new-look cangrejo at Ataula. (Michael Russell | The Oregonian)

1818 N.W. 23rd Pl.

503-894-8904

Dinner, Tuesday-Sunday

$$$

Simply put, Ataula is Portland’s finest Spanish restaurant, a still under-the-radar gem devoted to the inventive tapas tied to the country’s Northeast. Here in the former Pata Negra space, acorn-fed hams hang behind a jawbreaker-flecked marble bar, each whole leg ready to be sliced into shimmering red slips and served with grilled bread and bright tomato jam: the essence of Spain. Jose Chesa, a Barcelona native who toiled at several Michelin-starred kitchens in Europe, spins wonders out of ingredients both high and low. Potato wedges are given a dozen fine slits then fried to dark brown crisps and topped with a vermillion tomato sauce. Sashimi-sized pieces of gently cured salmon are coated in truffled honey and mascarpone yogurt. For a newer dish, Chesa rolls Dungeness crab up tight in a wonton wrapper then lays each crispy cigar on a plate with flower petals, fish roe and a fresh green bean purée. Execution is as high as you’ll find at Coquine, and Chesa’s creativity feels boundless. Since opening in 2013, Ataula has had its outstanding dishes, including what’s almost certainly Portland’s best paella. But with its Miami-bright decor — at least by the standards of this reclaimed-wood-obsessed city — and Chesa’s commitment to a vision so personal it didn’t always consider its audience, it sometimes felt out of place. Has Portland has grown to embrace Ataula, or did Chesa find a key to the city’s appetite? Whatever it is, he’s unlocked something big.

Order:

Ataula montadito, bellota ham plate, cangrejo (crab), arros negre or rossejat, seasonal sangria or a gin and tonic.

Insider tip:

Two years ago, winter came for Chesa and Ataula co-owner Cristina Baez’s second restaurant, Northeast Broadway’s Chesa, with their co-located churro joint, 180, closing shortly after. Rumor has it the couple still hope to find a new location for 180, perhaps closer to Ataula. Fingers crossed.

1. CANARD

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734 E. Burnside St.

971-279-2356

Breakfast, lunch, dinner and late-night, daily

$$

If you’ve ever wondered what it was like to eat at Le Pigeon in the early days, before all the accolades and expectations, just head one door down to its youngest sister, the all-day restaurant/cafe/bar Canard. Here at The Oregonian/OregonLive’s 2018 Restaurant of the Year, chef Gabriel Rucker, chef de cuisine Taylor Daughterty and their team fire off cheeky high-low riffs on fast and frozen food quicker than you can grab them. Where else can you find a cheap bag of Tim’s potato chips sliced open and blasted with fancy sour cream, onion and caviar? A crispy calamari tartine that with tangy marinara and green bell pepper evokes the French bread pizza you heated up in a toaster oven as a kid? Some dishes are keepers: the classic bistro oeufs en mayonnaise livened up with trout roe and smoky maple syrup; the fantastic dry-fried chicken wings served on a wooden board with some truffled ranch; and the duck stack, golden pancakes smothered in duck gravy, a duck egg and seared foie gras. And the burger is the restaurant’s raison d’etre, a slider-sized, White Castle-inspired steam burger with French onion soup mix blended into griddled beef, melted American cheese, spicy relish, caramelized onions and yellow mustard on a fluffy Hawaiian roll. It’s a work of art best enjoyed during the afternoon and late-night happy hours, when the price drops from $6 to $3. It can be dangerous to give yourself over to nostalgia too fully, but at least in 2019, there’s no place we’d rather eat than Canard.





Order: Oeufs en mayonnaise, chips and caviar, calamari tartine, fried chicken wings, steam burger, a Paris Brest dessert with seasonal fruit or a soft-serve to-go.





Insider tips: We're not sure who needs to read this, but Canard serves martinis at 8 a.m. and allows minors until midnight.





-- Michael Russell

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Portland's 40 best restaurants, mapped

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Nong's Khao Man Gai is one of the best inexpensive restaurants in America (The Oregonian/file)

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A guy can't survive on caviar alone. Sure, many of the great restaurants above specialize in pizza, tacos and -- in the case of this year's No. 1 -- a $3 happy hour burger. But what if you're looking to eat out on a stricter budget? Take a spin through our sister survey of Portland's 40 best inexpensive restaurants.



BRUNCHES: How is the average Portlander supposed to know which brunches are actually worth their money and time? Our guide to Portland's 40 best brunches



INSPECTIONS: Search our database of Multnomah County restaurant inspection reports.