• General

A week in Portland + the Oregon Coast

We’ve spent the last week in Oregon, a place I’ve wanted to visit for a really long time, mainly because I’ve wanted to visit Portland and get into its incredible food scene and general creative spirit.

Portland has everything packed into it’s streets – some of the best coffee spots going and a wealth vegan and vegetarian places as well as more breweries than you could ever visit. We ate so well in this city and we were welcomed by so many genuinely relaxed faces – people couldn’t have been friendlier or kinder.

Tabletop

The city is the perfect size too, you can get a sense of it in a few days, it’s easy to walk around from neighbourhood to neighbourhood and it is, of course, surrounded by an incredible coastline and insane mountains.

PORTLAND

EATING

Tusk – new Middle Eastern inspired

Canteen – vegetarian heaven, incredible bowls

lettuce

Dame – brand new, amazing wines

Luce – my dream restaurant new age Italian, super relaxed

Sweedeedee – brunch perfection

brunch

Ava Genes – Italian, amazing veg

LangBaan – unbeatable Thai

Han Oak – for Korean brunch

Speeded

Clyde Common – ingredient led interesting cooking, best for dinner

Wolf and Bear – food truck falafel

Salt and Straw – ice cream dreams

COFFEE

Heart

Coava

Good Coffee

flowers

SHOPPING

Farmers Markets (we visited the one at PSU)

Beam & Anchor

Shop Boswell

lo res-6131

Maven Collective

Jacobsen Salt Co

fennel flowers

Frances May

Powell’s Books

The Meadow

BREWERIES

There are literally hundreds of breweries in Portland. Each has a list as long as your arm for beers to try. Our favourites were:

The Amber Ale from Widmer brothers

breweries

Buoy breweries

Anything from Double Mountain Breweries

COAST

The entire Oregon coast is stunning and a drive along it will bring you through all sorts of coastal towns to explore. We stopped overnight in the old time faded seaside town of Astoria, and the imposing and more polished Cannon beach, both of which we loved.

coastline

The food here isn’t as diverse as Portland but we found a few good spots. Both are within an hour and a half drive of Portland. We swam in the sea in September and got some funny looks but we thought it was quite warm!

ASTORIA

astoria

14th Street café – brunch, good coffee incredible pastries

Fort George Brewery – great beer and diner food

Albatross and Co – forward thinking cooking and great drink

CANNON BEACH

Pelican Brewing – beers and decent new American

There are some decent ice cream places on the main street serving Oregon-made ice creams, too.

mountains beyond

MOUNTAINS AND BEYOND

We didn’t quite make it to the mountains but these are the places I have on my list for my next visit:

The Suttle Lodge & Boathouse

The Jennings Hotel

Timberline Lodge

Hood River

Double Mountain Brewery

OTHER GREAT GUIDES TO PORTLAND

Eater Portland – check out their “heat maps” for brunch, top 38 restaurants, vegan and veg spots

101 cookbooks – Heidi on point as usual

Kinfolk – Portland based with great taste – here are their favourite spots

Thanks to amazing photographer Laura Dart for her tips

anna

Images: Anna Jones/ John Dale
With thanks to Visit USA for sponsoring this post.

Posted: 16.09.16 1 Comments

Comments

Posted by jo at 12:15 on the 23.09.16

Thanks for the guide. I really want to go now! x

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