PDX
STARS
THE WEST
These are the 15 Michelin-Worthy Restaurants in Portland, Oregon
By Eric Barton and Mei Chen | May 21, 2025
Coquine
AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and has reviewed restaurants for two decades. He has proudly stood in many lines in Portland to wait for meals both mediocre and amazing. Email him here.
AUTHOR BIO: Mei Chen has worked for nearly a dozen start-ups in as many years, taking her to several West Coast cities, from L.A. to San Francisco. She can tell you the best Baja tacos just about anywhere. While she’s sure her current day job is permanent, she also has her eye on Carmel.
Be skeptical cities that try to sell you on how “foodie” they are. Usually it means the airport has a Shake Shack and some guy in a fedora makes cocktails in a reclaimed train car. But Portland, Oregon? Portland doesn’t bother with the pitch. It just quietly hosts some of the best meals you’ll have, ever, whether in a bungalow where the chef handwrites the menu or in a strip-mall bistro where dinner feels like a dare.
The Adventurist team set out to find the Michelin-worthy restaurants in Portland, and we narrowed it down to this, 15 amazing spots worthy of inclusion in the Michelin Guide. If Michelin ever decides to crawl out of its Parisian cave and look west, it’ll find a city already doing the work—just without the fanfare.
Akadi
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
Akadi is the kind of place where you forget, briefly, that you’re in a city obsessed with pickles and sourdough. Chef Fatou Ouattara doesn’t care about your microgreens—she’s busy serving peanut stew that simmers for hours and plantain fufu so silky it feels engineered. Her cooking draws from her roots in the Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso, but it lands here with no apologies and no concessions.
Why Michelin should pay attention: Because Portland’s best food doesn’t always come with a tasting menu—and Akadi delivers heat, soul, and technique that demand recognition.
What it deserves: One star
Canard
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
Canard, the younger sibling of Le Pigeon, is where chef Gabriel Rucker lets his culinary imagination run wild. In Portland's East Burnside neighborhood, this spot offers a playful twist on French-inspired cuisine. Dishes like the steam burger and duck stack pancakes showcase Rucker's flair for combining comfort food with fine dining techniques.
Why Michelin should pay attention: Canard's inventive menu and Rucker's culinary pedigree make it a strong candidate for Michelin recognition.
What it deserves: Two stars
Coquine
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
The thing about Coquine is it never seems to be trying very hard—which is why it’s so damn good. Chef Katy Millard cooks like someone who actually likes vegetables, and not in a pious way. The seasonal prix fixe might have Oregon morels in a parmesan broth one week and rabbit ragù over handmade orecchiette the next, and either way you’ll end up wondering why every other “farm-to-table” restaurant feels like a parody in comparison.
Why Michelin should pay attention: Millard was a 2025 James Beard finalist for Outstanding Chef, and Coquine is the rare place that does elegant food without the ego. If it were in Paris, Michelin would’ve shown up years ago.
What it deserves: Three stars
Higgins
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
Greg Higgins was doing the whole “eat local” thing when most chefs were still discovering arugula. His namesake restaurant opened in 1994, and it still feels like the kind of place where a tie isn’t required but respect for the ingredients is. Go for the house-cured charcuterie, stay for whatever the kitchen pulled from the Willamette Valley that morning and turned into a dish that tastes like someone actually gives a damn.
Why Michelin should pay attention: Higgins is the blueprint—quietly excellent, fiercely regional, and a reminder that longevity can be a form of rebellion.
What it deserves: Bib Gourmand
Janken
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
Janken feels like it was designed by a Bond villain with excellent taste in seafood. There’s a showy, sculptural thing happening with the space—towering ceilings, bamboo partitions—but the food has enough restraint to balance it. Chef Rodrigo Ochoa, who came up in some of Miami’s fanciest restaurants, runs the menu like a tasting lab, and the A5 tataki with black garlic soy isn’t just pretty—it’s clinical-grade umami.
Why Michelin should pay attention: Because Janken threads the needle between drama and discipline, something even starred places rarely pull off.
What it deserves: One star
Photo by cuisinewithdean
Kenny’s Noodle House
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE
You’ll find Kenny’s Noodle House in a pink bungalow on SE Powell, where the décor is minimal but the flavors are anything but. The congee is a masterclass in comfort, with silky rice porridge topped with everything from preserved egg to tender pork slices. Their wonton noodle soup, brimming with plump dumplings and springy noodles, delivers a depth of flavor that belies its humble surroundings.
Why Michelin should pay attention: Kenny’s offers authentic Cantonese comfort food with precision and heart, all at prices that make indulgence accessible.
What it deserves: Bib Gourmand
Langbaan
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
Langbaan moved since the pandemic, so you no longer enter through a secret doorway. But they don’t need gimmicks to keep people coming back. Instead, it’s the 12-course menus—tight, aggressive little masterpieces that every two months or so but never lose their heat. The gaeng som has more complexity than most wine lists. Chef Earl Ninsom founded the place, but the kitchen is run by chef Kitsanaruk Ketkuaviriyanont and pastry chef Maya Erickson.
Why Michelin should pay attention: Langbaan already won Beard’s 2024 Outstanding Restaurant. If Michelin's looking for theater, soul, and skill, they’ll find all three behind the bookshelf.
What it deserves: One star
Lilia Comedor
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
It’s hard to pull off a modern Mexican restaurant in a city that knows traditional Mexican well. But chef Juan Gomez built something serious at Lilia, where mole isn’t buried under cinnamon and tacos aren’t Instagram bait. Try the slow-roasted lamb neck with hoja santa if you need proof Portland’s best food can speak Spanish.
Why Michelin should pay attention: Because Lilia is what happens when someone takes Mexican cuisine seriously—and Portland finally gives it the space to be ambitious.
What it deserves: One star
Little Bloom
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
Little Bloom is a Lao food cart parked behind a bar, where chef Hongthong "Dhom" Chinyavong plates crispy rice salad with fermented pork and enough lime, herbs, and chili to make you briefly consider relocating to Vientiane. Her pad kee mao is chaos in noodle form, and that’s exactly the point.
Why Michelin should pay attention: Because Little Bloom delivers bright, explosive food in a shack smaller than most walk-in fridges.
What it deserves: Bib Gourmand
Olympia Provisions
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
Olympia Provisions has the feel of an old-world butcher’s shop where someone installed a wine bar. Portland native Chef Matthew Jarrell teams up here with salumist Elias Cairo, who trained in Switzerland, which explains why the soppressata, smoked chorizo, and jägerwurst all taste like they were made by a man with opinions and a cleaver. You can grab a salami board and a glass of gamay, but the move is to commit—order the cassoulet, tear off chunks of baguette, and pretend you’re somewhere with a flagon of wine and zero Wi-Fi.
Why Michelin should pay attention: Because charcuterie this obsessive deserves a star of its own.
What it deserves: Bib Gourmand
PDX Dönerländ
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
At PDX Dönerländ, a doner wrap isn’t fast food—it’s a slow reveal. First you get the chew of the fresh-baked flatbread, then the charred bits of lamb, and finally the sauce—tangy, herby, deeply unfair to other sauces. It’s Berlin-style street food in Portland, run by people who don’t care if you’ve never been to Kreuzberg, just as long as you’re hungry.
Why Michelin should pay attention: Because they’re doing one thing, and doing it with the kind of obsessive focus Michelin loves.
What it deserves: Bib Gourmand
Shalom Y’all
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
There’s something deeply satisfying about tearing into fresh pita while someone grills lamb nearby and '70s Israeli pop hums through the speakers. At Shalom Y’all, you’ll get hummus with enough olive oil to scandalize a cardiologist, fried cauliflower that somehow upstages the protein, and a lamb shawarma that requires total silence while eating. It’s loud, fast, and better than 90% of white-tablecloth restaurants in town.
Why Michelin should pay attention: Because they nailed what most fine dining spots forget: flavor first, vibes optional.
What it deserves: Bib Gourmand
Yaowarat
$$$$$ | MAP | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM
Yaowarat is what happens former Sweedeedee chef Sam Smith ignores all the rules, combining Thai and Chinese flavors into dishes that it’s safe to say have not existed anywhere else on the planet. You come here for grilled pork neck with chili jaew and stay because the mapo tofu somehow tastes more like Chinatown than most of Chinatown. It’s rowdy, spicy, unapologetic cooking—closer to a street cart in Bangkok than anything a Portlander would call “elevated.”
Why Michelin should pay attention: Because if street food deserves a star, here’s where they should start.
What it deserves: One star
