Alberta Street is one of the most prominently featured neighborhoods in Portland tourism guides. Few other streets, if any, can boast a similar density of restaurants, art galleries, boutique stores, and coffee shops. The portion of the street between NE Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard and NE 33rd Avenue has held the moniker Alberta Arts District since the nineties, thanks to the indie art culture that’s still going strong in the galleries on Alberta today.
Urdaneta
The Best Places to Eat and Drink on Alberta Street
How to eat and drink your way through Portland’s famous Alberta Arts District
But just as much as it’s known for art, Alberta Street is also known as one of the most heavily gentrified areas in Portland. Alberta was a historically Black neighborhood and was also home to a sizable Latino community, but by the mid-2000s, the racial makeup of North and Northeast Portland neighborhoods including Alberta had dramatically shifted, continuing in the decades after. In recent years, groups such as Self Enhancement, Inc. have worked to offset some of the effects of gentrification by building affordable housing for communities with historical ties to the neighborhood.
Today’s dining scene on Alberta is wide-ranging, with an array of cultures represented. This map dives into some of the finest dining and drinking in the neighborhood, including a couple of longstanding Ethiopian restaurants, a Vietnamese American take on brunch, top-tier food carts, and a subterranean wine bar serving dealer’s choice pours.
— Additional reporting by Rebecca Roland and Brooke Jackson-Glidden.
Urdaneta
The Best Places to Eat and Drink on Alberta Street
How to eat and drink your way through Portland’s famous Alberta Arts District
Alberta Street is one of the most prominently featured neighborhoods in Portland tourism guides. Few other streets, if any, can boast a similar density of restaurants, art galleries, boutique stores, and coffee shops. The portion of the street between NE Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard and NE 33rd Avenue has held the moniker Alberta Arts District since the nineties, thanks to the indie art culture that’s still going strong in the galleries on Alberta today.
But just as much as it’s known for art, Alberta Street is also known as one of the most heavily gentrified areas in Portland. Alberta was a historically Black neighborhood and was also home to a sizable Latino community, but by the mid-2000s, the racial makeup of North and Northeast Portland neighborhoods including Alberta had dramatically shifted, continuing in the decades after. In recent years, groups such as Self Enhancement, Inc. have worked to offset some of the effects of gentrification by building affordable housing for communities with historical ties to the neighborhood.
Today’s dining scene on Alberta is wide-ranging, with an array of cultures represented. This map dives into some of the finest dining and drinking in the neighborhood, including a couple of longstanding Ethiopian restaurants, a Vietnamese American take on brunch, top-tier food carts, and a subterranean wine bar serving dealer’s choice pours.
— Additional reporting by Rebecca Roland and Brooke Jackson-Glidden.
Alberta Market
Alberta Market might look like an ordinary corner store from the outside, but it’s actually a fried chicken hotspot for those in the know. At the cash register, a hot case features juicy, crispy wings, thighs, and drumsticks available by the scoopful, particularly satisfying with a side of heavily spiced jojos eaten out of a paper bag.
Janey Wong/Eater Portland
Bole Ethiopian Restaurant
Bole is a no-frills spot, often considered one of the best Ethiopian restaurants in town. Meat options include favorites like kitfo, Ethiopian beef tartare, and doro wot, spicy chicken and egg stew. The veggie combo is an ideal way to sample the vegetarian portion of the menu, which includes gomen (collard greens) and numerous styles of lentil stew served atop injera. Pair everything with a glass of honey wine.
Bole Ethiopian Restaurant
Paladin Pie
Portland is home to countless phenomenal pizzerias, but no other can claim the same level of geek glory as this food cart. The name of the cart itself, as well as pizzas like the Druid and the Drow, take inspiration from Dungeons and Dragons lore. But they’re not playing around when it comes to pizza: A naturally leavened crust serves as the foundation for wood-fired pies topped with curly Ezzo pepperoni or roasted mushrooms and Parmesan cream. Specials here are worth a perusal — past options have included a bacon-kimchi number and a butternut squash curry pie. Any pie should get a drizzle of the cart’s house Calabrian chile crisp.
Paladin Pie
Baon Kainan
Chefs Geri and Ethan Leung transformed their Seattle Filipino pop-up into a buzzy food cart, serving dishes like grilled and braised chicken adobo, roasted mushroom sisig, and violet-hued ube bibingka. While all the main menu standards are stellar, the real fun at Baon Kainan comes in its one-offs and specials, whether it’s a Jollibee-inspired menu of fried chicken and Filipino spaghetti, a brothy chicken tinola ideal for sick days, or collaborations with pop-ups like Balong.
Molly J. Smith
Pasture PDX
Pasture harkens back to the golden age of Portland’s hyper-local food movement in a way that feels wholly original and new. Chef Kei Ohdera and butcher HJ Schaible source meats and produce from ranchers and farmers based in Oregon, specifically those with a focus on regenerative agriculture. Lunches consist of cold and hot sandwiches with rotating house meats, like tender pastrami, housemade mortadella, or smoked ham — try the Reuben on marbled rye. Finish with a lard-enriched chocolate chip cookie dotted with whole Oregon hazelnuts, and maybe take home a jar of the shop’s own hazelnut chile oil.
Pasture
Swiss Hibiscus
A tiny outpost of the Alps in Portland has been hiding just off Alberta for fifteen years, tucked away on 14th Avenue behind a ZoomCare. The Swiss Hibiscus team, which traces its roots back to a Swiss restaurant opened in Honolulu in 1982, lovingly prepares Swiss classics like emince Zurichoise, or pork in a mushroom cream sauce, and spaghetti Ticinese, Switzerland’s answer to Italy’s famous pasta dish. Other central European staples like wienerschnitzel and goulash also make appearances on the menu. Entrees come with rösti — stuffed hashbrowns — or spätzli. And of course, where better to indulge in cheesy fondue and a glass of wine on a chilly Portland evening?
Swiss Hibiscus
Kabba’s Kitchen
This budget-friendly, portion-generous West African food cart specializes in Senegalese and Gambian food. Try the mafe yapp, beef served in a creamy peanut and tomato sauce over white rice, or the fish yassa, a whole grilled tilapia in lemon onion sauce. Make sure to add in an order of plantains and a hibiscus drink to complete the meal.
Gumba
Gumba serves expertly crafted bowls of pasta — topped with things like braised short rib or squid ink — alongside burrata-topped fry bread and mains like pork saltimbocca. Even after leaving their original cart behind, owners Robin Brassaw and Jesse Martinez have retained their sense of culinary whimsy. Case in point: meals should always finish with a slice of eggplant olive oil cake, dripping with coffee caramel.
Zilla Sake
Since this sake bar and sushi restaurant opened over 15 years ago, chef Kate Koo still stands behind the sushi counter slicing Hokkaido scallops or lightly searing pieces of bigeye tuna. Offerings might shift with what’s in season, but past visits have involved yuzu scallop rolls creamy with the most delicate oceanic note, dry-aged king salmon nigiri balancing its butteriness with the mystifying note of whitewater, and yellowtail sashimi with a bracing citrusy element. The best experience of the restaurant, however, is in its omakase, which shows off beautiful cuts of seasonal fish.
Proud Mary Cafe
This Australian outpost is known for its exceptional pour overs, smooth flat whites, and its outstanding brunch fare, often utilizing interesting fermented elements and umami bombs. The hash wrap is a standout on the menu, with smoked pork belly, potato hash, fried eggs, and anchovy-laden bagna cauda in a tortilla. For something on the lighter side, opt for the likes of lemongrass-ginger oatmeal or wild mushroom toast with whipped cannellini beans.
Mole Mole Mexican Cuisine
This food cart has a shockingly extensive menu, ranging from enchiladas blanketed in a trio of moles to lengua tacos on hand-made tortillas to plump chiles en nogada, all served on beautiful, painted ceramics when you eat onsite. Mole is generally the move here, whether it’s a chicken quarter doused in pistachio-green mole verde or vegan mole poblano enchiladas — one of many plant-based options on the menu — stuffed with soy curls. Eat at the cart pod’s covered patio, or take your moles to the back patio at the adjacent Baerlic Beer Co. taproom.
Mole Mole Mexican Cuisine
RJ Skillets
RJ Skillets is an underrated brunch option on breakfast cafe-packed Alberta, with Mexican dishes like fried egg-topped mole enchiladas, chilaquiles featuring house-made corn tortilla chips, chorizo omelets, and hearty breakfast burritos — plus pancakes and French toast for those seeking something sweeter. For lunchtime fare, go for a carne asada and shrimp combo plate, crisp chimichangas, or a steaming plate of beef barbacoa, with churros and ice cream for dessert.
RJ Skillets
Dar Salam
Set in an old carriage house, the colorful Dar Salam is the place to taste Iraqi food like stuffed onion dolmas and slow-cooked lamb shank with eggplant stew, all freshly prepared from scratch and based on family recipes. The restaurant’s smoky baba ganoush is an essential order, as well as the tangy pickled mango salad and crispy falafel, molded into tiny doughnuts for maximum crunchy surface area. Pair your meal with Iraqi beer — extremely difficult to find in the United States — or cardamom-scented coffee.
Dar Salam
Abyssinian Kitchen
Originally opened in Southeast Portland nearly a decade ago, Abyssinian Kitchen moved to Alberta Street during the pandemic, serving some of the best Eritrean and Ethiopian food in town. The menu is small but carefully curated, with options for omnivores and vegans alike; highlights include key sir (roast beets with feta), shiro (ground spiced chickpeas) served in a clay pot, and tomatoey, onion-laden beef awaze tibs. Everything comes atop injera made with 100% teff, though it never hurts to order extra for scooping up every last drop of stew. This is also one of the rare Ethiopian spots in town where you’ll find a full bar, with creative cocktails from a hickory-smoked fig boulevardier to a margarita amped up with mitmita, an Ethiopian spice blend with bird eye chiles and cardamom.
Pasar
This Indonesian restaurant, from the same team as Wajan on East Burnside, specializes in the snacks and dishes found in the archipelago’s morning and evening markets. Snacky options include crispy items like bala-bala, savory veggie fritters, and sate padang, Sumatran steak skewers. Vegetarian and vegan options are plentiful, and you can customize your order by adding on several types of tapioca crackers, sauces, and sambals. A highlight on the menu: lontong cap go meh, a fragrant coconut-based soup loaded with jewels of rice dumplings, pickled vegetables, fried tofu and tempeh, and a sambal-saucy hard-boiled egg. Don’t skip the menu of kue, or Indonesian sweets, including putu ayu, steamed pandan cake, and biji salak, chewy sweet potato balls in warm palm sugar broth with coconut cream.
Molly J. Smith/Eater Portland
Urdaneta
A true taste of the Basque region, Urdaneta delivers quintessential pintxo bar classics like ham croquetas and tortilla Española. But it also veers into the molecular gastronomy and extravagant ingredients that Spanish restaurants like the acclaimed El Bulli were known for — try the foie gras bomba, a soup dumpling-like bite served on a soup spoon, made from encapsulated foie gras, cabbage, and apple. Any meal should finish with a slice of the restaurant’s exceptional Basque cheesecake with sherry whipped cream.
Nathan Williams/Eater Portland
Thơm Portland
The menu at this Alberta Vietnamese restaurant may be limited, but each dish is a hit: gorgeous bowls of beef, chicken, shrimp, or vegan pho; a grilled pork vermicelli bowl with a generous serving of nước chấm; and cơm gà, hunks of tender five-spice glazed chicken over rice. The restaurant’s tiny market area includes snacks like shrimp chips and Pocky, and the cooler is stocked with a rotating selection of drinks, including beer and natural wine.
Jake Southard
