Three Perfect Days: A Trip to Portland, Oregon

On my first day in Portland, I wake up at the Kex Hotel. But I feel like I’m somewhere farther away. Occupying a 1912 apartment block near the eastern end of the Burnside Bridge, it’s the second location of a stylish Icelandic hotel. The name comes from the Icelandic word for “biscuit” (the original Reykjavík spot is in a renovated cookie factory). It’s a combination of Nordic and Pacific Northwest designs. There are reclaimed Douglas fir floorboards and Geysír wool throws. I love the wallpaper the most, though. Before I head out for the day, I stop in the hallway to take a few photos of the design by local tattoo artist Melanie Nead. The pattern combines natural elements found in both Iceland and Oregon. Think puffins, lupines and volcanoes.

My brunch plans take me to Montavilla. It's a growing neighborhood in the shadow of Mount Tabor, an extinct volcano turned into a city park. In fact, the gentle peak gave Montavilla its name. Residents of Mount Tabor Village began referring to the area by the abbreviation used on its streetcar signs: Mt. Ta. Villa.

Akkapong “Earl” Ninsom is beloved in this area for his bold Thai flavors. I order the smoked whitefish spread with fried saltines and French toast with triple-cream Brie, grilled strawberries and maple-date syrup. It's the kind of cooking that shows why Ninsom got a 2022 James Beard nomination for outstanding restaurateur.

Afterward, I walk around Montavilla’s compact main street. I pass its brewery, wine shop, dive bar and 1940s cinema. Noticing a colorful mural of fruits and veggies, I go into a bakery called Zuckercreme. It's the kind of spot where you expect to see Strawberry Shortcake and Hello Kitty sharing gossip over a slice of pie. I buy myself some strawberry-lemonade Rice Krispies treats before heading uphill to Mount Tabor Park. The area has calmed since its days as an active volcano. The 636-foot-tall hill has great views of the skyline across the Willamette River. I’m charmed by the bufflehead ducks splashing in the reservoir.

Portland is a city of artists, and downtown is known for some of PDX’s best indie boutiques. I take a ride across the river to the city’s westside. At Kiriko Made I browse products made in or inspired by Japan, including the boutique’s own gorgeous textiles. There are indigo-dyed neckties, tenugui washcloths, denim work shirts and kimonos. Across the street is a little bit of Mexican craftsmanship at Orox Leather Co. The place takes its name from the owners’ current home (Oregon) and family roots (Oaxaca). I’m tempted by a leather-billed “proletariat hat.” Instead, I buy a set of Oregon-shaped coasters stamped with regional icons like Multnomah Falls.

I’m already scheduled to visit the Willamette Valley and its many wineries this weekend, but I can’t pass The Crick PDX and not walk in. This is the downtown tasting room of Abbey Creek Winery. It's run by the state’s first Black winemaker and vineyard owner, Bertony Faustin. He opened his winery just outside the city in 2008, inspired by his late Haitian father’s “immigrant hustle.” (His Plan B if things didn’t work out was to make raisins.) Faustin says that for the first five years he didn’t accept his position as a game-changer. “I didn’t want you to look at me as an inspiration; you would have seen my insecurities.”

These days, the vibe inside is as bold and fun-loving as the man himself. There's a mural of headphones on the wall and a soundtrack playing in the bar. “All my wines are hashtagged,” he says. “I think wines should be enjoyed more as a personality or a context than as a varietal.” Faustin introduces me to his pinot noir, #Roundawaygurl, and his malbec, #Blackertheberry. His positivity and playfulness are appealing to a wide audience. “I get 60-year-old white folks who love us,” he says. “It’s a reminder that who you are is enough. We don’t have a wine club—we’re a tribe.”

I pass the landmark Powell’s City of Books and enter the polished industrial Pearl District to have dinner. República is a Mexican spot where the meals are full of pre-Columbian ingredients like amaranth and chapulínes (grasshoppers). To start, the waitress brings out a cactus-stuffed memelita (basically a cornmeal canoe) and a tlacoyo (like a thicker stuffed tortilla) with potato, chipotle and queso fresco. “You’re looking at two of the most ancestral dishes that we know about in the Americas,” she says. They’re also topped with cheese and olive oil as a nod to European influences.

What follows is hamachi ceviche with mamey salsa; duck breast with a pistachio-enriched mole negro; and a dessert of grapefruit zest pavlova with chile cream and charred, candied nopalitos (cactus). References to the country’s complex history are part of the meal. For example, there's a drink called “What Happened in 1519” (the year of the Spanish conquest). It's described as a “citrus-forward tequila-based cocktail.” Call it a margarita or not, but the tequila has me confident enough to make a bold statement. I think this is the best Mexican restaurant in the United States.

Portland’s food scene is always expanding. But I'm told I shouldn’t skip the 17-year-old Scandinavian Broder Café, located just off Southeast Division Street’s restaurant row. I order the aebleskiver, Danish pancake balls served with lemon curd and lingonberry jam. For something savory, I get a Norwegian potato crepe. And because the café has the largest collection of aquavit on the West Coast, I have to have a Danish Mary breakfast cocktail.

Aquavit means “water of life,” which feels appropriate for my morning activity. The plan is to paddle down the Willamette River, taking a north-south path through the city. Just south of downtown, I meet my Portland Kayak Company guide, Fred Harsman. A retired math teacher, he now teaches about this underappreciated waterway. He tells me that kayaking became popular during the pandemic, gesturing to his paddle: “These dictate a bit of social distancing!”

As we put on our life jackets, I mention that I’m a very novice kayaker. “You can do a totally crappy job and still go forward,” he assures me—and he’s right. We begin paddling out toward the fishhook-shaped Ross Island. The former sand and gravel mine is now a nature reserve with a robust great blue heron rookery. As Harsman points out bald eagle nests, I ask if the river gets any other wildlife. He tells me that sea lions have been making their way here, roughly 100 miles from the ocean. “They just hang out by the falls and eat the salmon,” he says. “[Scientists] capture them and take them out to the ocean, and they’re back in a week. They’re American: We love our all-you-can-eat buffets!”

As we round the northern point of the island, its eastern shore gives way to a post-industrial lagoon. It's filled with disused dredging machinery and cranes. Not a pretty sight, but it is inspiring to see how nature has rushed back in to fill the void since mining stopped in 2001. We continue south, cutting through the “backyards” of houseboats, before making it back to shore. Sadly, we didn’t see any sea lions this time around.

I’ve worked up an appetite and have lunch at Kachka, a contemporary Russian restaurant in Portland's hip Buckman neighborhood. The place is run by Bonnie Frumkin Morales, a child of Soviet immigrants. The name is a homage to her grandmother, who escaped danger in her native Belarus. I enjoy Siberian pelmeni (dumplings stuffed with veal, pork, beef and onion), and Herring Under a Fur Coat, a seven-layer dip of salt-cured herring, beets, potatoes and much more.

A 10-minute rideshare trip across the river brings me to the Portland Art Museum. Opened in 1892, it is one of the West Coast’s oldest art museums. It’s filled with the works of Van Gogh, Monet, Cézanne and Renoir. But there are no finer works here than what I find on the second and third floors in the Northwest and Native American collections. I browse works like a 19th-century Tlingit killer whale hat made with copper and spruce root. Or the 2019 mixed-media sculpture Green Star Quilt, woven together from circuit boards and brass wire by Yellow Quill First Nation artist Wally Dion.

From here, I walk through downtown. I stop to take a picture of the waterfalls in Keller Fountain Park before heading back across the river. It's happy hour at the Little Beast Brewing Beer Garden, which is in a cozy bungalow on Division Street.

Husband-and-wife founders Charles Porter and Brenda Crow draw inspiration from the yeast and various bacteria that transform raw ingredients into beer. They’re not afraid of the smells, even naming their beer membership Guardians of Funk. In a town that loves beer, they offer a lineup that includes an oak-aged tart red ale, a fruited gose and a Brett super saison. (It being Portland, there are plenty of IPAs too.) I sample a crisp Bes tart wheat ale, then walk three blocks down the street for dinner.

Chef Thomas Pisha-Duffly opened Oma’s Hideaway in 2021 in honor of his late Indonesian-Chinese grandmother, or oma. The space has coral and moray eel wallpaper, a rhinestone-tiled chef’s counter and a lava lamp. The menu takes an equally vibrant approach to the flavors of Singaporean and Malaysian vendors. Standouts include corn fritters with a sweet chili peanut sauce; roti canai, a flaky flatbread with parsnip and squash curry; and sour tamarind pork ribs with roasted tomato, jackfruit jeow (a Laotian dipping sauce) and fish sauce caramel. I can’t speak to the authenticity of these dishes, but if this is anything like an oma’s home cooking, I may need to find an adult foreign exchange program.

A trip to Oregon wouldn’t be complete without a stop in the Willamette Valley. The Napa of the North is producing some incredible wines these days. I pick up a rental car, but before I leave I need to visit one of Portland’s trademark food-cart pods. Hinterland Bar & Food Carts is a thing of beauty, centered on a cabin-like bar with plenty of open-air seating. At Matt’s BBQ Tacos, one of the five carts there, I order three breakfast tacos on lard-infused flour tortillas. There's migas (eggs scrambled with tortilla chips); chopped Texas-style brisket; and pork belly with refried beans and queso.

I hit the road. As the density of the city switches to open skies, I see snowcapped Mount Hood. It’s too early to start wine-tasting, so I spend some time birdwatching. At the 900-plus-acre Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge, I wander through wetlands and oak savannas. I use my point-and-shoot camera to photograph and identify new species. Within about an hour, I’ve added five new ones to my “life list". I'm very excited about the puffball shaped bushtits and the cackling geese, which resemble Canada geese who have stubbed their necks.

Finally, I head to Et Fille Wines (French for “And Daughter”), a storefront tasting room in the small town of Newberg. When this winery opened in 2003, it was about the 150th in the state; now, there are nearly 1,000. Over a glass of rosé, I chat with owner Jessica Mozeico. She was working in biotech in San Francisco when her father, a backyard grape-grower and garage winemaker, called her to talk about opening a winery. He passed away in an accident, but Mozeico has continued his legacy. “My dad and my daughter anchor me,” she says. “As a winery, we are tied to our land, our seasons and our community, so it’s our job to leave it a better place.” That means sustainable growing practices, removing the wasteful foil sleeve around a wine bottle’s neck and using lighter bottles to reduce carbon emissions during shipping.

“The thing that makes the Willamette Valley is an intense spirit of collaboration,” Mozeico adds. “Our region produces only 1.5 percent of domestic wines grown in America, but over 20 percent [of those] have Wine Spectator scores over 90. We’re small but mighty.”

For lunch, I stop in Dundee at Red Hills Market. I order the tuna melt: a baguette with wood-fired Oregon albacore, provolone and Gruyère, lemon zest, capers and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil. The latter is from Durant Olive Mill, the Pacific Northwest’s only Olioteca.

Just five minutes away, I reach Remy Wines in a big yellow farmhouse with a pride flag waving out front. Here, powerhouse winemaker (and mayor of McMinnville) Remy Drabkin makes award-winning Old-World Italian wines. “I’m really focused on making the best wine in the simplest way possible,” she says. She pours me a blueberry-and-black-pepper-spiced dolcetto, made with Piedmont’s most widely grown grape. “It’s about responding to the fruit.”

Drabkin’s wines are a celebration of tradition, but her approach to community-building is anything but traditional. She’s a pioneering voice in the queer winemaking world and a founder of Wine Country Pride. The organization has distributed pride and Black Lives Matter flags around the valley, donated books with LGBTQ+ characters to public libraries and even hosted the world’s first queer wine festival. “We are very focused on inclusion,” she says, “and the wine industry can be very exclusive.”

Drabkin has gotten some pushback, but she responds defiantly. “I grew up here,” she says. “I’ve lived here almost my whole life. Where do they think I’m gonna go?” It’s no wonder she was elected mayor.

I continue to downtown McMinnville, a busy Main Street U.S.A. among the grapevines. I drop my bags off at the Atticus Hotel, where I’m given a glass of champagne from R. Stuart & Co. Winery which has a tasting room around the corner. This agricultural town has become the hub of wine country, but it was once known as Walnut City—until a 1962 storm blew down entire orchards. The property pays respect to that history with woodworker Jon Basile’s archway of walnuts. It's a recreation of an art piece that was sent to the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle.

The restaurants in the Willamette Valley are all excellent. But I’m surprised to find some of the most innovative cooking happening in an old pine-tar shoe-grease factory that is now a plant shop, bar, restaurant and event space. Inside Mac Market, I meet co-owner Diana Riggs who walks me over to the counter at the café. Chef Kari Kihara came here after working in Michelin-starred kitchens in San Francisco. She’s now serving polished small plates that make the most of the valley’s agriculture. She brings out bright rockfish ceviche with all-local nuoc cham and a full appetizer platter. There's dill hummus, jalapeño popper dip, charred apple romesco, cara cara marmalade, sunchoke chips and sourdough naan—made with “Nora,” the sourdough starter. “We love Nora,” Kihara says. “She’s from San Francisco and went to Maine with me before coming here.”

So how did Riggs get into the warehouse-revitalization business? “My husband and I were living in that Airstream over there,” says the Seattle native. She gestures to a trailer that is now a shop selling plants and bulk eco-friendly cleaning products. They’d stop through McMinnville, with their eyeless golden retriever. One day some dog lovers at the local diner anonymously picked up the check for their breakfast. “We were blown away by it,” she says. “It was just so charming. The first few months, we were like: ‘When is the other shoe gonna drop?’” For Riggs and so many others, it still hasn’t.

As I go back to my hotel, I buy a huckleberry cone from Serendipity Ice Cream. This shop employs adults living with developmental disabilities. I find it impossible not to feel that sense of charm that Riggs did. McMinnville may look quaint, but this isn’t some film-set Mayberry. It’s an industrious town where, just like in Portland, the locals are changing the status quo. They're putting in the work to build a better community. They're taking something great and making it even more perfect.