I love the lemon ricotta pancakes. They’re thick, fluffy, and massive. They make a big batch of pancake batter and basically fold ricotta into each batch to order, so they’re so moist and so light. They change the fruit seasonally, and you can get whipped cream on top as well. But you have to pour all the syrup on top.

I also get the tuna crudo every time I go. They change the style of the crudo seasonally; the last time I went, they made it with pistachios and avocado. The dish is mainly tuna, diced in big chunks—not fine—so it has this meatiness when you take a bite. And the avocado is also in big chunks, incorporated in every bite, with crispy pistachios on top. Then, the seasoning is so simple: just really good olive oil, sea salt, and lemon zest. The quality of the tuna is so good, and the ratio of the ingredients together is perfect.

Bearcat is a nice, beautiful space: From the outside, it looks really modern, and inside there’s a lot of windows, so it’s bright and open, and you feel good. The restaurant attracts mostly a college-age crowd, and older—not a lot of kids. It’s got table service, and they do brunch every day. Sundays are obviously the most crowded, but it’s worth the wait time.

If you go there and have to eat just one thing, there’s this seafood-and-biscuit dish you have to try. They call it a Crab Daddy if you get it with a soft-shell crab, or a Lobster Daddy if you get it with lobster. The setup is always the same: a house-made biscuit and a crawfish cream sauce, plus the fried seafood of the day. It’s just fantastic comfort food. It’s at least a pound and a quarter of seafood.

Verti Marte is totally no-frills. There’s absolutely nowhere to sit, so you’ve got to take your food and go. A lot of people end up sitting outside and munching on their po’ boy at 2:00 in the morning. It’s crazy. But, you know, everybody is on the same page, and there’s no judgment.

The food isn’t dialed back, either. Meaning, the menu is shorter, but it has a great selection of things. There’s crudo, and other healthier stuff that won’t kill you. But their main thing is this burger that Jordan and Amarys have been working on for, like, five years—just kind of chipping away at it—called the Upper Quarter Pounder.

Lost Love, which is a classic Marigny dive bar, is dark, with red walls, and usually packed with locals. There are shelves of books you can read, but I’m not sure anybody ever does. And the back room, where the kitchen is, has seating and all sorts of local art displayed on the walls for sale.

I usually order the shrimp po’ boy when I want something quick and really good. The roast beef is amazing, too, though. You get all the little crispy ends in the po’ boy, and the meat isn’t dry. I find this one nice and juicy.

It’s pretty fantastic: an in-house-ground patty with house-made pickles, banana ketchup, and even from-scratch American cheese, which is something they totally undersell. You know when you get the sliced processed cheese, the one that’s nice and pliable and melts all beautifully, and the textures are all like, “Oh, this is straight from my childhood,” sort of thing? That’s what they did, combining different cheeses and stabilizers and emulsifiers to create a sliceable version that really has that American, melty cheese taste.

Heathcliffe Hailey, who does the food at Mimi’s In The Marigny (a classic for late-night tapas), just took over the food at a dive bar down the street, Lost Love Lounge. He’s doing a Philly cheesesteak pop-up, Brotherly Love, that’s really good. Heathcliffe’s kicking on all cylinders—he’s basically running Franklin Avenue.

Best Brunch
The fluffiest pancakes ever, flaky biscuits piled high with buttery lobster, and more hearty brunch dishes to kick off a Sunday morning.

At the sandwich counter, Heathcliffe grills the onions and peppers on a flattop, and he grills and thinly slices ribeye for the steak. He also has a vegetarian cheesesteak that’s got extra veggies and mushrooms. Either way, Heathcliffe gives the option of either provolone or Cheez Whiz. I order mine with the provolone because it’s melty, and I like it better; the Whiz is saucier and more runny. And all of this is served on a dense, soft hoagie loaf that I’m pretty sure he ships in from Philadelphia.

Verti Marte is a counter in the back of a convenience store in the French Quarter, and it’s open 24 hours. Even though they’re a convenience store, they still have good food. Everything is prepared super simply, grab and go. The best thing about the place is that you can just get something good and quick in your stomach—po’ boys, omelettes, and chicken Creole, a half-braised, half-roasted chicken—and there doesn’t have to be anything fancy about it. That’s why I love it.

Palm & Pine is owned and operated by Jordan Herndon and his wife, Amarys Herndon. I think this location is about three months old, and I’ve been five or six times since they opened. But they’ve been doing pop-ups since 2015, which I’ve been to religiously, almost every week.

Palm & Pine does a late-night, service industry–oriented menu—open until 1 a.m. on weekdays and 2 a.m. on weekends. I’ve been going always at the same hour (after midnight), and there’s a pretty refined, chilled-out crowd. You see restaurant people there, for sure, but the ambience is definitely low-key, and there’s not really a lot of tourists. And they’re staffed up at night, ready for action. It’s fantastic for New Orleans, and for cooks and bartenders who get off late. The burger is $10, and I don’t think that’s a bad deal at all. You’re going to be pretty full eating this thing, and it comes with a good helping of fries.

The “Fifty Fifty” in Lovely’s refers to pizza and ice cream—two of the best things in the world. It’s basically the most Portland restaurant I can think of. Everything there is 100% locally sourced. Even the flour, which the chef there uses to turn into this ridiculous sourdough bread that she then just basically puts pizza toppings on, is freshly milled. It’s not a typical pizza place at all. They don’t use tomatoes unless they’re in season or unless they preserve them.

But, like the city itself, the cuisine of New Orleans is forever changing. These days, you’re just as likely to come across Vietnamese po’ boys and braised-greens street tacos as you are traditional eggs Sardou, turtle soup, or soufflé potatoes. From Danish-inspired aebelskivers, to Vietnamese-inflected Mardi Gras king cakes, to whole pompano roasted Uruguayan asado–style over an open flame, New Orleans has so much going on that it can be hard to know where to start.

Luckily, a handful of the city’s favorite chefs are here to help. They include Michael Gulotta, chef and owner of Maypop and MoPho, two Southeast Asian–inspired restaurants pushing the boundaries of modern Creole; Nina Compton, chef-owner of Compère Lapin and Bywater American Bistro, where she and her partner, Executive Chef Levi Raines, are killing it; Hieu Than, chef-owner of the creative and beloved Gert Town ramen shack called Kin; Ana Castro, sous-chef at Thalia, the highly anticipated spin-off of New Orleans favorite Coquette; and Joaquin Rodas, longtime chef of Bacchanal, the backyard hangout that put Bywater dining on the map.

These are their favorite places for late-night snacks, drinks, breakfast and brunch, special-occasion meals, and, of course, some very iconic New Orleans staples. Read on to find out where the Big Easy’s chefs eat.

Best Late-Night Eats
A NOLA-style quarter-pounder and crudo at a buzzy new restaurant, cheesesteaks in the back of a locals-only bar, and chicken Creole at a convenience store: These sought-after late-night New Orleans eats never disappoint.

New Orleans is the land of beignets, gumbo, po’ boys, and étouffée. The city’s signature Creole food—influenced by the Native American, West African, Haitian, French, Spanish, German, and Italian immigrants who found their way to Louisiana before it was even part of the US—is one of America’s first fusion cuisines.

The city has always been a great place to schedule all your vacation activities—live music on Frenchmen, City Park’s sculpture garden, the tomb of Marie Laveau, or maybe a second line or two—around your dining schedule. That is, if you can actually squeeze in activities aside from eating and drinking. This is the land of hurricanes and frozen daiquiris, after all, where a stroll down Bourbon Street or a ride on the St. Charles Streetcar can easily give way to a full-blown bar crawl, with intermissions for char-grilled oysters, cochon de lait, or a snowball, of course.

Nong’s Khao Man Gai is definitely the place that I go to most in Portland. It’s a counter-service spot, and Nong does a Hainanese chicken and rice that’s basically the main thing on the menu. You get poached chicken, steamed rice, and this garlicky chili-soy sauce to dump over it. My go-to order there is the steamed tofu with peanut sauce and rice, and I get a side of pickles with that.

It’s definitely the one spot where, if anybody’s coming to town, I’m like, “You have to go to Nong’s for lunch.” The rice is so, so good. You don’t really hear people talk about how good plain rice is, ever. But that’s my favorite thing there. The other stuff is good, and the sauce makes it and ties it all together, but I could just eat balls of that rice on its own.

One of my favorite pies that I’ve had there was Sungold tomato, corn, and peach with fenugreek greens and Taleggio. All of that on top of pillowy, tangy, gorgeous sourdough. The chef, Sarah Minnick, buys from a lot of the same farms that we do. It’s really nice to see the same produce that we use in a completely different light.

She also makes these fantastic flavors of ice cream, like toasted fig leaf and vanilla. There’s a caramel-miso ice cream that’s really good. And her rum raisin is probably the best thing in Portland. She makes a legit rum raisin ice cream that has two bottles of rum in it—one in the custard and one that she soaks the raisins in. So it’s a 21-and-up ice cream. She even makes her own raisins—she gets these gorgeous grapes and then dries them herself. I always tell people about this place, because everything is just so detail-oriented, and there’s so much care taken with every single ingredient.

He always has classic flavors, like stracciatella, chocolate, and pistachio. But he imports his pistachios from Sicily, and he imports his hazelnuts from the Piedmont—all his ingredients are of the highest quality. He also walks a wonderful line of using in-season fruit from the Pacific Northwest. So, for example, for two weeks this summer, he had a white-nectarine sorbetto that was just gorgeous. He has a watermelon currently, and he’ll do something with stone fruit and cherries, of course. Then he’ll have pear in the fall.

The hazelnut gelato is my favorite flavor. It’s perfectly toasted and perfectly seasoned. It’s almost salty, with a beautiful balance of both flavor and texture. I love it. I’m addicted.

Pinolo is great—oh my gosh, so great. It’s a classic Tuscan gelateria. The guy who runs it, Sandro Paolini, is from Tuscany. He’s really devoted to authentic Italian gelato and very much doesn’t stray from that technique. The texture of his gelato is sublimely creamy.

Olympia Provisions is really special and unique for charcuterie, because everything on the plate is made in-house. They sell in grocery stores nationally, but the restaurants are beautiful. I usually go to the one in southeastern Portland; once you walk in there, it’s a really cool space.

All the meats are good, but the mortadella is my favorite. The texture is very, very soft compared with something like Boar’s Head brand. They slice it very thin, and it’s just really good flavor. I highly recommend it. I think it’s a nice place to bring people who aren’t from here.

Editor’s Note: The chefs’ responses have been edited and condensed for clarity.

Ataula is magical. Chef José Chesa is one of the most underrated chefs in Portland. Chesa’s approach to Spanish food falls along the lines of traditional-meets-modernist technique. And the vibe of the restaurant really reflects his personality. He’s a very outgoing, gregarious individual, but serious in the kitchen. The decor is super bright and lively—a perfect place for a date night.

People get confused because they think it’s a tapas bar, but it’s really not a tapas bar. He does have pintxos and tapas, a little bit of that stuff. But he showcases his technique and his talent with what he makes.

There’s a dish called the Xupa-Xup, which is basically two pieces of salami that are filled with goat cheese, on a lollipop stick. His patatas bravas is probably the signature dish that kind of best describes what he’s doing. It’s just a simple dish, but he elevates it to this next level. He slices a potato paper thin and puts it back together. I think he cooks it sous vide and then cuts it into these little bite-size pieces that he fries. It’s pretty amazing.

Earl Ninsom has a few excellent Thai places in town, including PaaDee and Hat Yai. Langbaan is tasting-menu-only, and you enter the space through PaaDee. You walk around the back, and a bookshelf opens up, and you go through that, and it goes into this tiny tasting-room area. He always has a different theme, which changes every month. It might be Bangkok Chinatown, or a specific region of northern Thailand, or something like that. (Right now it’s inspired by Thailand’s working class.)

To me personally, it’s the number-one restaurant in the city right now.

Can’t-Miss Bites
If you’ve got time for only one meal, go to one of these spots to really get to know what Portland is all about.

You get around a dozen courses, with awesome nontraditional beverage pairings, like cocktails and sakes. The food is always really inventive, and it’s cool to see something that’s based in tradition but also playful and new.

Erizo is a really fantastic restaurant. They do a 20-ish-course tasting menu that’s focused on sustainable seafood from the Oregon and Washington coast. They have foraging and fishing licenses, so at the beginning of every week, the two owners go out to the coast and forage limpets, different kinds of barnacles, and other things you can’t actually buy. So they have this great, ever-changing cast of weird sea creatures that they prepare for you. A lot of it’s raw, but there’s also a lot of fermentation. They make a lot of different garums, which are basically fish sauces, with all these different ingredients.

They bring some really cool local produce into play, but overall, it’s very shellfish- and seafood-heavy. The atmosphere there is very, very clean. It has a cork floor, a lot of clean white and wood, and it’s just this lovely, quiet, calm atmosphere for you to devour delicious sea creatures and drink amazing wines. It’s really rad. They’re doing something that I’ve never seen anywhere before. The closest thing that I could compare it to would be Willows Inn up in Washington. It’s just really fascinating stuff.

Nimblefish is a sushi restaurant. Dwight, the chef there, is very classically trained, but his restaurant feels a little bit more rock-and-roll than other Portland sushi places. They have incredibly high-quality fish—they work directly with producers and with fishermen, and are getting the varieties that are most in-season and fresh. They have a really nice selection of stuff from the Pacific Northwest, but also from Japan and Hawaii. You get the best of the best of whatever there is.

They often have several varieties of uni that are all just amazing and beautiful. My just-turned-five-year-old loves raw fish, so he loves this place, and we both really, really love the tamago. There’s also stuff that’s a little off the beaten path—the last time I was there, they had this white fish and seaweed broth, with white fish and shrimp dumplings. It was a Japanese technique for sure, but it was something a little different.

I’m a huge, huge fan of a greasy-spoon, hole-in-the-wall-type diner. This place is actually near my house; I discovered it driving around one day when I was looking for breakfast/brunch. It’s like walking into Grandma’s house, if your grandma happens to be an older Korean lady. When you look at the menu, you’ll see the typical diner stuff, but then you’ll also see things like a galbi or kimchi omelette.

It’s just this perfect mix of down-home American diner food, with touches of Korean flavor. Their crab and shrimp omelette is huge and so good. They call their bread “strong bread.” I have no clue what it is, but it’s delicious. Think of it like whole-grain bread on steroids. Everything’s made in-house, and it’s all phenomenal. And I like that it’s splurge-y and feels special without being stuffy or white-tablecloth. It feels comfortable, which is more my vibe when I go out to eat.

Tusk is a very stylish, modern restaurant that focuses on flavors of the Levant, but expressed through the Northwest’s most beautiful produce. Everything is so fresh. I think that it’s best enjoyed during the day, because of the abundance of natural light that floods into the modern dining room through large windows on two sides.

Honestly, anything you order off the menu is going to be great. It’s a small place, probably 30 seats or fewer. During the summer, she has a patio open, too, that adds maybe six or seven more tables. Outside is perfect, not too hot or sunny, and it’s right next to Mount Tabor Park. So you can walk up the mountain to enjoy some nature after the meal, or come to the restaurant after walking.

“Splurge” means different things to different people, but price tag aside, these four spots are all great choices for a celebratory meal.

The brunch menu changes quite a bit, but I always get the LaMama breakfast, which is a breakfast board with a little bit of this and that—things like olives, feta, eggs, yogurt, toast, nuts, and fruit—or The Cypriot, which is sunny-side up eggs, halloumi, sausage, peppers, and roasted tomato, because I just can’t get enough halloumi in my life. Another really nice touch is that the creamer for coffee has cardamom in it, which makes a morning there that much more special.
I’d go to Coquine for brunch any day; you can’t go wrong. The chef, Katy Millard, worked in Michelin-starred restaurants in San Francisco and France, and she’s one of the best chefs in the city. Her menu looks simple, but it’s very creative. Even something like a simple Little Gem salad gets a twist.

It’s influenced daily or weekly by whatever’s local and seasonal, so the menu’s always changing, but I’ve really liked brunch dishes like grits with roast vegetables and pork ribeye. She served that with house-made sriracha.

They change the menu all the time—every six months or so—so I don’t have a particular drink to recommend. But there’s always a well-manicured cocktail available, like the collaboration I did with them last year, a sherry and tea-smoked maitake mushroom–inspired cocktail. You can ask anybody: Trick Dog has the best bartenders; they really know what they’re doing. It has great plates, too—chicken wings, curried noodles, salad—so you can also get a late-night bite from the bar.

Chez Panisse, especially the café upstairs, has never failed me. I love how cozy and casual the decor is. I’ve never really been to France, but when I’m there, it feels like I’m in France, so I start out with a glass of Champagne. I love the roasted pork loin with polenta, cauliflower romesco, currants, pine nuts, and black olives.

Whatever they have, it’s always seasonal and you can’t go wrong, like the perfect tomato salad. And then there’s the fruit—when the evening ends, sometimes they just bring you a pear and a knife, and you know it’s going to be the best pear you will ever have. Or they’ll hand you a date, or a cute little wooden basket with a tangerine or something, and you don’t really want to peel this thing. But then you do, and you eat it, and it tastes like they’ve injected it with syrup or something because it’s so amazing. It’s like the best fruit just goes to their restaurant, and no one else can get it.

Because Ethiopian families traditionally purchase green coffee beans and roast them at home, Folklores sells beans this way to meet the needs of the Ethiopian and Eritrean residents that live nearby. Folklores also makes fragrant micro batches of coffee beans using its small in-house roaster, packaging the beans in bags for customers to buy and take home. Blends range from fairly acidic lighter roasts, with hints of lemon peel and white flowers, to warmer dark roasts with notes of tobacco and chocolate.

Folklores’ full-bodied whole-milk latte with hints of cinnamon wakes me up most mornings. Gideon rightly chuckles at me when I ask for medium strength—fair warning, Folklores’ brew will fuel you for hours. Try the Ethiopiano, a squat piccolo latte topped with a shot of espresso and a dollop of foamed milk. If you’re looking for a slower, more traditional coffee experience, the jebena is a quiet morning treat: You’ll receive a medium-ground rich brew served in the type of spouted clay pot that’s typically used in Ethiopian coffee ceremonies.

Colombia is nothing if not diverse. My wife grew up in Bogotá, a sprawling city-in-the-mountains where the food consists mostly of stick-to-your-ribs stews and soups, fried or grilled meats, and plenty of starches. The kind of stuff you need to keep you going in the thin air up at 2,600 meters (for point of reference, that’s a good 50 percent higher than Denver). More than once over the course of visiting various family-in-law members I’ve been reduced to a whimpering, quivering mass pleading for mercy in the face of an endless train of boiled potatoes, yuca, arracacha, platanos, , and the starchy, large-kerneled local corn. And that’s before the meat, cheese, and ultra-sweet desserts even arrive at the table.

On my most recent trip, we made the journey out of Bogotá southeast to the llanos, the vast plains regions where most of the country’s excellent beef comes from. The ride is only 90 kilometers as the crow flies, but can take several hours by car along the winding roads and long tunnels that lead you 2,100 meters down through the mountains.

The simplest filling is a bit of shredded or sliced cheese, most commonly Guayanés, a soft, slightly sour fresh cheese similar to low-moisture mozzarella (you can use mozzarella if you’d like). Waxy-fleshed avocados similar to the fuerte cultivar we find in the U.S. (not to be confused with the creamy Hass avocado) are also a common filling, as is shredded chicken, black beans, chicharrón (crispy pork skin), shredded stewed beef, or cuts of grilled beef.

The version I have here is my own take on arepas rumberas—”Party Arepas,” so-called because they’re the kind of thing you want to eat after a night of drinking a bit too much cerveza and aguardiente. Made with pork shoulder stewed in stock with roasted chiles and onions, it’s topped with cilantro and dry crumbled fresh cheese (you can use Mexican queso fresco, queso blanco, or even feta). This is best accomplished by starting them in a skillet, then finishing them in an oven.

The key to forming them is to create to larger arepas, stuff the cheese in the middle carefully seal up the edges then use your hands to shape them into an even round.
Because they tend to be thicker than standard arepas and you need the cheese to be melty, I find that finishing them in a toaster oven (or on the cooler side of the grill if you’re grilling them) is the easiest way to go about it.

Sandwiches
While in Colombia you’re far more likely to see wide, thin arepas made with toppings, in Venezuela, arepas tend to be thicker, with fillings sandwiched into them after splitting. The method for making these arepas rellenas (stuffed arepas) is pretty much exactly the same, though they are thicker so will need even more gentle cooking to cook through without burning on the exterior.

This is best accomplished by starting them in a skillet, then finishing them in an oven.