When I went to Portland this summer, one of my favourite things about this gorgeous city was the food. There are ridiculous numbers of yummy restaurants and cafes, and also – a novelty for me – food trucks (I haven’t included them here, but go here for a list).
I had lots of recommendations from people, but I want to especially shout out a thanks to Katherine Wright of Making Her Way, who recommended three of the fab coffee places.
Here’s a quick round up in case you’re visiting and want a few pointers – plus you can ogle all the fab food I had!
1. Canteen: Healthy Bowls
A small place (a handful of seats inside, a handful more outside) with a limited menu of delicious ‘bowls’. A bowl – in this context – is a dish that’s assembled and has rice, beans, some sort of veg and other delish ingredients.
I had the Southern Bowl, which had BBQ Soy (tastier than it sounds), collard greens, brown rice, black eyed peas, carrot and cabbage slaw and cashew ranch dressing. I also had a Ginger-Berry smoothie which was fantastic.
And then I came back another day and got the raw peanut butter chocolate cheesecake which was AMAZING. I ate it by the lake in Laurelhurst Park (pic at the end of the post), and it was pretty idyllic.
Website: CanteenPDX.com
Find It: 2816 SE Stark Street
Hours: 9am-9pm every day
In one sentence: Concise menu of yummy fresh vegetarian food, with interesting flavours, served in a small and stylish restaurant that’s open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
My Rating: 5/5 (I went twice)
2. Mother’s Bistro: Comfort Food
This is an uber-popular restaurant which sells all kinds of homemade favourites. I went for dinner, but would have loved a chance to go back for breakfast (not enough time!).
The menu’s fairly large (and different depending on the time of day), though the ratio of veggie options isn’t huge, it’s enough. I had Mac’n’Cheese, which was amazing, but literally just that – if I had it again I would make sure I ordered some veggies with it. I was with friends and we had cocktails which were fab.
Website: MothersBistro.com
Find It: 212 SW Stark Street
Hours: Complicated, go here (closed all day Mondays)
In one sentence: Make sure you have space in your tummy before coming, and be prepared to do exercise the next day to run off the delicious calories in these yummy and inventive takes on comfort food.
My Rating: 4/5 (great food but not so many veggie options for me – I don’t count salad as comfort food 😉 )
3. Prasad: Healthy Hipster Cafe
The positive feelings I feel about this cafe are coloured by the fact that I met some fab and hilarious people from the WDS conference I attended, and so spent the whole meal laughing. I’m pretty sure the food was good though. It’s at the front of a yoga studio, so you feel fairly virtuous just sitting in the cafe, even if you’re on a laptop or eating with friends.
I had the Chipotle Chilli Bowl which was pretty nice (brown rice, chipotle black bean chilli, steamed greens, avocado, jalapeño cashew cheese) and a chai tea. The bowl was lovely, and the tea was fine.
Website: PrasadPDX.com
Find It: 3632 SE Hawthorne Blvd (they also have two sister restaurants)
Hours: Monday-Friday 7.30am-8pm, Sat-Sun 9am-8pm
In one sentence: Healthy hipster vegetarian smoothies, salads and soups in a yoga studio.
My Rating: 4/5 (delicious, maybe just a smidge on the too hip/healthy side 😉 )
4. Salt & Straw: Deluxe Ice-cream
I was staying near this neighbourhood (at the Park Lane Inn) and had a mooch around, and there’s plenty to see, buy – and eat. I resisted temptation the first time I walked past this shop, but it captured me the second time.
There’s usually a queue out of the door, but it’s worth waiting for. You can try different flavours if you can’t decide between Stumptown Coffee & Burnside Bourbon or Cinamon Snickerdoodle (for example!). I asked what the most popular flavour was and went for that – Sea Salt and Caramel Ribbons. Amazing. If you like ice-cream, it’s definitely worth hitting one of their three ‘scoop shops’ on your visit.
Website: SaltandStraw.com
Find It: 838 NW 23rd Ave (they also have two sister scoop shops)
Hours: 11am-11pm daily
In one sentence: Inventive and delicious ice cream in a funky neighbourhood.
My Rating: 5/5 (as long as you’re just looking for ice-cream, natch)
5. Red Robe Tea House & Cafe: Chinese Tea House
I met up with a friend here, and had some interesting tea. I always find it a bit hard to choose though when I know nothing about the various teas on offer. There’s a wide range of tea, served beautifully, and some fairly standard Chinese food (at least the veggie stuff I had).
Website: RedRobeTeaHouse.com
Find It: 310 NW Davis St, Suite A
Hours: Mon-Fri 11am-8pm, Sat-Sun 12noon-8pm
In one sentence: Chinese tea in Portland’s China town, better for tea than food.
My Rating: 3/5 (More if you’re a tea aficionado)
6. Stumptown Coffee at Ace Hotel: Portland’s Most Famous Coffee
This is some of Portland’s best-known coffee in a very atmospheric and relaxing hotel lobby. There’s plenty of sitting options: couches and stools and regular old tables. I sat in the window and did some work and felt very ‘Portlandia’.
You can also find lots of interesting coffee information on their website.
Website: Stumptowncoffee.com
Find It: 1026 SW Stark St
Hours: Mon-Fri 6am-7pm, Sat-Sun 7am-7pm
In one sentence: Uber-hip high-quality coffee.
My Rating: 4/5 (great coffee, clearly, with some food options).
7. Crema Bakery and Coffee: Spacious cafe with great pastries
Another really interesting neighbourhood, you can find cool bars, cafes and shops close by. The cafe itself feels open and airy, as it has huge windows – you can sit outside too if the weather’s ok. There are places to plug in and when I was in there there were plenty of people tapping away at laptops.
Nice coffee and great patisserie. I enjoyed working here for a morning and there’s solid wifi and a number of plug sockets too.
Website: CremaBakery.com
Find It: 2728 SE Ankeny St
Hours: Mon-Fri 6am-7pm, Sat-Sun 7am-7pm
In one sentence: Bright and cheery coffee and pastries.
My Rating: 4/5 (Good place to hang out and work, with food / drink options for breakfast and lunch).
8. Coffeehouse Northwest: Great coffee, great vibe
This was one of my favourites places that I hung out and work. I really liked the laid-back vibe and friendly staff – they recommended several other places for me to go and find food afterwards (they’re all about coffee). I have a fab iced caramel coffee which had that smokey burnt caramel taste that I just love mixed with coffee.
Website: Sterling.Coffee
Find It: 1951 West Burnside Street
Hours: Mon-Fri 6.30am-6pm, Sat-Sun 8am-5pm
In one sentence: Hip, small cafe with great coffee – everyone has a laptop.
My Rating: 4/5 (Good place to hang out and work, with food / drink options for breakfast and lunch).
9. Sound Grounds Cafe: Hippie & relaxed, good for lunch
Recommended by my lovely airbnb hosts, this was a very laid back veggie cafe where I was able to hang out and work for the better part of the day. Service a tiny bit slow, but people seemed friendly.
Can be a bit noisy with kids around, definitely family friendly, and there are plenty of seating options so you can work.
Website: Sound Grounds Cafe
Find It: 3701 SE Belmont Street
Hours: 8am-6pm
In one sentence: Chilled out hippie atmosphere with friendly staff and plenty of seating options for work or socialising.
My Rating: 3/5 (Another good place for laptop working).
10. World Cup Coffee Shop in Powell’s Bookshop: Books and Coffee. Heaven.
Powell’s Bookshop (their main one, ‘City of Books‘) takes up a whole city block. It’s a mecca for booklovers (it claims to be the largest independent book store in the world), and you could spend all day there. I have a moratorium on book buying given all my travel – I have a kindle and that’s how I feed my 100 book a year reading habit.
And it has a cafe. It was pretty busy when I was there, but I found a space, with a plug socket, and was able to work for a while in a lovely environment. The wifi was a bit patchy – I imagine there are a lot of people using it given the location – but I definitely felt inspired there.
Website: World Cup Coffee Shop, Powell’s
Find It: 1005 W Burnside St
Hours: 9am-11pm
In one sentence: Millions of books and decent coffee.
My Rating: 4/5 (Another good place for laptop working).