Compared with cities like New York and Los Angeles, Portland, Oregon, is relatively small—which only makes its sheer density of destination-worthy restaurants more impressive. Where else can you find a spot for Russian comfort food, a fabulous Thai tasting menu behind a secret door in another restaurant, and pizza made with freshly milled local flour, all in the span of a few miles? There are so many renowned places to eat, including breweries and fine-dining establishments, that even locals have trouble deciding where to sit down for their next meal.

Since you can’t try them all without picking up and moving to the City of Roses (which, honestly, you wouldn’t be crazy for considering!), we’ve turned to a few experts to point out some tried-and-true neighborhood gems.

Best Late-Night Eats
Seems like the entire city of Portland turns into a pumpkin around 11:45 p.m….with the exception of these inviting late-night options.

I would say you can’t leave San Francisco without eating the chicken from Zuni Café. I love walking in, with all the exposed brick and big windows, where you can see chickens roasting in the fire. The chicken takes about 90 minutes to come out, so you have to be patient. But then the bird arrives looking so beautiful, with a bread and pine nut salad accompanying it. The dish is just delicious, and reminds me of my mother’s chicken—I’m from France, born and raised in Versailles. We polled seven knowledgeable chefs—Carlo Lamagna of brand-new Filipino destination Magna; Sam Smith of upscale Middle Eastern restaurant Tusk; Bonnie Morales, the chef-owner of Russian restaurants Kachka and Kachinka; Nong Poonsukwattana of Nong’s Khao Man Gai; Katy Millard of celebrated French restaurant Coquine; Maya Lovelace of Southern restaurants Mae and Yonder; and Earl Ninsom of beloved Thai hot spots Langbaan, Hat Yai, PaaDee, and new Thai/American barbecue mash-up Eem—to learn their favorite places to eat and drink in Portland.

In San Francisco, there are a lot of great restaurants, and a lot of new up-and-coming restaurants. But there are also a lot of restaurants that have been here a long time, and have just become iconic, like Zuni. These restaurants have made the San Francisco culinary scene what it is today, and for me it’s important to embrace and celebrate them.

Being an East Coaster, the reason that I ended up in California was the produce, more than anything else. I think one of the better models for farmers markets out there is the Ferry Building Farmers Market. The Saturday market is the best one, but there’s intermittently ones on Tuesdays and Thursdays that are also good, if you were visiting San Francisco during the week.

You can go there and try all the different seasonal produce. There’s a number of cheesemakers, bakers, chocolatiers, and other various artisans. And then there’s a lot of pop-up restaurants there, too. It’s a good way to get a really good sampling of what’s new in San Francisco. It’s the one place that I would say visitors should not miss!

CDP is the sister bar to Commis, the only Michelin-starred restaurant in Oakland. I love it for special occasions; my partner and I just went there recently for our wedding anniversary.

CDP is a fancy cocktail bar that manages to still feel fun and super chill. The bartenders are really knowledgeable, and the cocktails are so interesting. The food is also spectacular.

If you’re coming to San Francisco, go to The Buena Vista in Fisherman’s Wharf and order the Irish coffee. Go during a rainy, foggy, cold San Francisco winter day and sit at the long, dark wood bar, with the bartenders in white jackets. It’s just a perfect place to end your trip. I’m sure you can find better whiskey somewhere else, and better coffee, but it’s classic—they’ve been serving it since the 1950s. They use their own whiskey brand, they shake the beautiful cream by hand, and they add in square lumps of sugar to sweeten the whole thing. Typically, I have three of them in a sitting.

You’re getting creative beverage pairings, creative food, and because Chef Lee is Korean, the food is inflected in that way. One of his signature dishes is a faux shark fin soup, which has no actual shark fin in it, of course. I consider the broth in the faux shark fin soup at Benu to be the best broth I’ve ever had, with Shaoxing wine, Dungeness crab, and clear noodles that are both soft and almost crunchy at the same time.
It takes me out of French fine dining or Italian fine dining or anything like what I do on a daily basis. Chef Lee uses ingredients and methods that are entirely unfamiliar to me, and so I appreciate that, because it feels like a really special experience.

Can’t Miss Bites
Take the cable car to drink Irish coffees in a bar untouched by time, wander through one of the world’s best farmers markets, and dig into the platonic ideal of roast chicken. You can’t leave San Francisco without making these stops.

Clearly, there’s nothing tired about the San Francisco classics, but if you’re looking for something new, you can find fantastic, of-the-moment tasting menus, too. Here are the spots where you should treat yourself.
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.

The one thing that is consistently on the menu that I always get is the slow-poached egg yolk. It has a brothy allium base, with just about everything in the onion family, in all of these different forms. And then there’s an egg yolk floating on top. The dish is super savory, but the onions are also really sweet, so the dish is almost like a savory dessert with a silky egg yolk. And then there are little crunchies on top that I think are some sort of onion. Yeah, that little bite is just really delicious, comforting, and very luxurious.
We have so many really good three Michelin star–type restaurants in San Francisco, but I think one of the best is definitely Benu in the SoMa district, downtown. You walk in and it has a really cool and clean vibe with lots of earth tones and a really modern feel.

I’m always looking for attention to detail, and a unique and consistent vision, and that’s super evident there. The food, the way it’s served, the service, the wine list; a common thread of excellence runs through the whole experience. They serve a tasting menu focusing on seafood and vegetables, and chef Corey Lee has this ability to distill flavors into the most compact bites.

When I go out to drink cocktails, it’s at Trick Dog, a really cool place in the Mission with fun people. The decor is dark and minimal, almost like an old saloon, and it’s very tiny. If you want to sit and have a long conversation over a drink, then you better get there as soon as it opens, because the later it becomes, the more fans come pouring through the doors.

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.

I’m pretty obsessed with mushrooms at the best of times, i just love their texture and their ability to absorb so many flavours, which is why they work so well here. they’re sliced thinly and then sautéed with fresh thyme, onion, garlic, salt and pepper and then stirred through with natural (coconut yoghurt) to create a rich, creamy mix that absorbs so well onto crusty sourdough bread.
ingredients
• 250g chestnut mushrooms, roughly chopped
• half an onion, peeled and roughly chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
• 2 sprigs of fresh thyme, roughly chopped
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• juice of half a lemon
• 1 tablespoon coconut yoghurt
To serve
• 2 slices sourdough bread, toasted
• pinch of sea salt
• pinch of pepper
method
1. place the onion and garlic in a pan with a good drizzle of olive oil and cook for 5-10 minutes over a medium heat until soft.
2. once the onions and garlic are soft, add in the mushrooms and give it all a good stir.
3. leave to cook for another 5-10 minutes until soft.
4. just before serving, add a good pinch of thyme, salt and pepper and stir through the yoghurt and lemon juice.
5. when ready; spoon the mushrooms on top of the toast and serve with another sprinkle of thyme, salt and pepper.

ingredients
For the avocado base:
the flesh of 1 large or 2 small avocados
basil
1 garlic clove, peeled
pine nuts
1 tablespoon tahini
juice of half lemon
1 tablespoon of olive oil
2 tablespoons of water
pinch of salt
For the mushrooms & toast:
250g mushrooms
3 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons of pine nuts
Drizzle of olive oil
Pinch of salt
Juice of 1 lemon
2-4 slices of bread
method
Place all of the avocado base ingredients into a blender or food processor and pulse until broken down but still a little chunky.
Place a large pan over a medium heat and add a drizzle of olive oil. Once warm, add the mushrooms, pine nuts, garlic and a pinch of salt. Cook for 5-10 minutes until soft.
Toast the bread before spooning some of the avocado mixture on top of each slice, you can use a spoon to spread it out evenly.
Top with the mushrooms from the pan, a sprinkle of fresh basil, a pinch of black pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice.
this is a great, simple breakfast to make on mornings where you want something a little more special. the avocado base is deliciously creamy and tastes amazing topped with the garlicky mushrooms and crunchy pine nuts.

I’m pretty obsessed with mushrooms at the best of times, i just love their texture and their ability to absorb so many flavours, which is why they work so well here. they’re sliced thinly and then sautéed with fresh thyme, onion, garlic, salt and pepper and then stirred through with natural (coconut yoghurt) to create a rich, creamy mix that absorbs so well onto crusty sourdough bread.
ingredients
• 250g chestnut mushrooms, roughly chopped
• half an onion, peeled and roughly chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
• 2 sprigs of fresh thyme, roughly chopped
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• juice of half a lemon
• 1 tablespoon coconut yoghurt
To serve
• 2 slices sourdough bread, toasted
• pinch of sea salt
• pinch of pepper
method
1. place the onion and garlic in a pan with a good drizzle of olive oil and cook for 5-10 minutes over a medium heat until soft.
2. once the onions and garlic are soft, add in the mushrooms and give it all a good stir.
3. leave to cook for another 5-10 minutes until soft.
4. just before serving, add a good pinch of thyme, salt and pepper and stir through the yoghurt and lemon juice.
5. when ready; spoon the mushrooms on top of the toast and serve with another sprinkle of thyme, salt and pepper.

Atart by cooking the pasta, cooking time varies so follow the on pack instructions.
While the pasta is cooking, sauté the garlic with a pinch of salt and a drizzle of olive oil.
Add the chopped tomatoes and sliced mushrooms, with a sprinkling of paprika and cayenne pepper.
Once those have cooked nicely stir through the tomato puree and add the spinach, letting it wilt.
When the pasta is cooked, drain and stir it into the sauce.
Serve with lots of black pepper, chilli flakes and salt, and i like a squeeze of lemon juice too.

I use tomatoes, spinach and mushrooms, but red peppers, courgettes and green beans would be great additions too. likewise, feel free to change the herbs and spices, i love the mix of paprika and cayenne with chilli flakes for a little spice, but fresh basil, dried oregano and rosemary are a lovely combination too.

I’m pretty obsessed with mushrooms at the best of times, i just love their texture and their ability to absorb so many flavours, which is why they work so well here. they’re sliced thinly and then sautéed with fresh thyme, onion, garlic, salt and pepper and then stirred through with natural (coconut yoghurt) to create a rich, creamy mix that absorbs so well onto crusty sourdough bread.
ingredients
• 250g chestnut mushrooms, roughly chopped
• half an onion, peeled and roughly chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
• 2 sprigs of fresh thyme, roughly chopped
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• juice of half a lemon
• 1 tablespoon coconut yoghurt
To serve
• 2 slices sourdough bread, toasted
• pinch of sea salt
• pinch of pepper
method
1. place the onion and garlic in a pan with a good drizzle of olive oil and cook for 5-10 minutes over a medium heat until soft.
2. once the onions and garlic are soft, add in the mushrooms and give it all a good stir.
3. leave to cook for another 5-10 minutes until soft.
4. just before serving, add a good pinch of thyme, salt and pepper and stir through the yoghurt and lemon juice.
5. when ready; spoon the mushrooms on top of the toast and serve with another sprinkle of thyme, salt and pepper.