Portland Restaurants
Read restaurant reviews written by visitors and make comments.
The number of excellent Portland restaurants has certainly changed over the last 30 years. I remember Portland when you had a choice of about five or six restaurants to choose from if
you wanted to go out for a special occasion dinner--a really good one.
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| Marilyn M, Creative Commons
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Things began to change in the 1970's. Most of the hotels at that time had European trained chefs. Many of these chefs came to Portland thinking they were taking a temporary job. They discovered as time went on that they didn't want to leave Portland. Portland was and is a very nice place to live.
The first move was made by the Chefs at the Benson Hotel. First the pastry chef, then the sous chef, then the chef, then the food and beverage manager opened their own restaurants. Chefs at other hotels followed. By 1985 there was a nice smattering of excellent fine dining restauants in Portland and the surrounding communities.
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I used to be capable of writing a review on all the new restaurants in Portland because I visited all of them. A new restaurant opened and I was there. Not on opening night. Opening night is the worst time to visit a restaurant. I let things settle down a bit. I wanted to visit after the kitchen and dining room had their staff trained. In other words, after the kinks had been worked out.
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| eyeliam, Creative Commons
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Today I live in England and only get to visit Portland once or twice a year. This doesn't allow me to write many reviews or recommendations for Portland restaurants. Besides, have you ever found a wonderful restaurant that you just loved and then six months later you took guests there and found it had turned into a nightmare? Unfortunately, restaurants can change in a flash. A change of ownership or management is usually the cause.
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| Patrick Haney, Creative Commons
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Last year I wrote a glowing review of my favorite pub restaurant for my other website, Lincolnshire Guide. It is in a town several miles from where we live so I usually only visited about three or four times a year. Last month my husband and I dropped in for lunch. My first clue was the empty parking lot at 12:30 pm. It didn't really register though until we were inside. Gone was the wonderful menu and in its place was a list of items on a blackboard. I could see that all of them were what I call "prefab" food. You could have shot a cannon through the pub from one end to the other and not hit anyone. It should have been jam packed with happy customers like it used to be.
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All of this makes me shy of writing recommendations and reviews of Portland restaurants for this website. So I decided to open it up to you, the visitor, to make your recommendations. Then other people who have eaten in the restaurant can make comments of how they like that particular restaurant or maybe of why they don't like it. AND maybe we will be alerted if something suddenly changes that makes it not such a great place to eat anymore.
Some great food is served at Portland's many brewpubs. If you are interested in trying some award winning Portland beer and having a casual bite to eat try these
Portland Breweries.
Do you have a favorite restaurant in or near Portland?
Are you willing to take a few minutes and tell us about it?
It can be any kind of restaurant. It can be a place that you think serves the best hamburger in town or the best pizza, or the best mexican food, chinese food, whatever. Or maybe you have found a romantic gem of a place tucked in on a side street and you want to share your discovery.
What Other Visitors Have Said
Click below to see contributions from other visitors to this page...
Peemkaew Thai in the Pearl
PeemKaew Thai is the best Thai restaurant in Portland and maybe even on the West Coast. My wife and I eat there at least once a month and sometimes we ...
Higgins Restaurant
My husband and I always enjoy eating at Higgins when we are in Portland. I particularly enjoyed the pork loin with basmati rice the last time we were ...
Trebol on Mississippi Ave.
Not rated yet
The best Mexican food ever! This is a new place I just discovered. This has to be Portland's best kept secret. I thought I knew every Mexican restaurant ...
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