Portland's 2025 dining scene leaned on comfort
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On a rare sunny day in December, Axios Portland sat down with food critic Andrea Damewood to talk about food over brunch at Broder Nord. Photo: Meira Gebel/Axios
Portland is closing out 2025 with a restaurant landscape defined by an Italian renaissance, French-leaning Pacific Northwest cuisine, chef-driven pop-ups and diners craving actual service again.
The big picture: To make sense of it, I sat down with longtime Portland Mercury food critic Andrea Damewood over brunch to talk about the trends shaping how we eat and where we go from here.
- This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What themes were hyper-present in Portland dining this year?
- "Red sauce Italian, that's a huge one. I don't know if a bunch of people just realized there was a gap in the market and all launched around the same time, but it's hard to ignore the success Gabbiano's has had."
- "It's a well-documented historical phenomenon of returning to comfort food in times of recession. That's why we loved bacon in 2009."
- "A lot of the successful restaurants right now are leaning back into the Pacific Northwest French thing and farm-to-table, like L'Echelle, Bar Nouveau and 82 Acres. It's interesting to see that return."
Do you feel like we've hit the peak on anything?
- "Everyone has a Caesar salad right now. If you're lucky, there's a seasonal salad that rotates, but half the time it's a bountiful entree and the other half it's tiny."
- "There's never been this much pizza. Who's eating all this pizza?"
What's something you ate that you can't stop thinking about?
- "Columbia Farms had a few rows of Oregon State University's test strawberries. It was juicy, citrusy and so unusual. Are they better than Hoods overall? Maybe not, but I'm still thinking about them."
Pop-ups were the "if you know, you know" craze this year. Why do you think that is?
- "It's appealing because chefs don't have to deal with all the overhead. They don't have to grind as many hours. But it's been a hindrance to me as a food critic because it might sell out before I get there."
- "I'm not a hype beast, I'm not going to stand in line for an hour and a half."
- "I'd like to see these places that are getting incubated in other kitchens get the footing and funding to make it work so that it's more widely available."
Do you think momentum for Portland as a foodie city is growing?
- "We used to be bigger, 2015 was our heyday. Cost of living was cheaper, real estate was cheaper. People were able to take more risks as a restaurant and really kick off. Now you need investors, and that stifles creativity."