Southeast Division Street is one of Portland’s most formative food neighborhoods — a culinary hotspot boasting longstanding city favorites like Bollywood Theater and more recent phenoms Ruthie’s and Oma’s Hideaway. One could easily spend days perusing the array of restaurants, bars, and food carts that line the popular neighborhood.
The Best Restaurants on Portland’s SE Division
Where to eat on this Southeast Portland restaurant row
Zoe Baillargeon is an award-winning writer and journalist currently based in Portland, Oregon. She loves writing about the intersection of sustainability and food, trends, and overlooked culinary destinations and traditions.
This map, featuring everything from wood-fired Mormon cuisine to wildly creative cocktails, will get you started. Just remember to save some room for gelato.
To tighten things up, we limited this map to just what you can find on Southeast Division, but don’t miss some of the breathtaking bites on neighboring Southeast Clinton, like seafood standby Jacqueline, or the original outpost of Scandinavian breakfast cafe Broder. For a list focused on that area, check out this map.
—Additional reporting by Thom Hilton and Paolo Bicchieri
The Best Restaurants on Portland’s SE Division
Where to eat on this Southeast Portland restaurant row
Zoe Baillargeon is an award-winning writer and journalist currently based in Portland, Oregon. She loves writing about the intersection of sustainability and food, trends, and overlooked culinary destinations and traditions.
Southeast Division Street is one of Portland’s most formative food neighborhoods — a culinary hotspot boasting longstanding city favorites like Bollywood Theater and more recent phenoms Ruthie’s and Oma’s Hideaway. One could easily spend days perusing the array of restaurants, bars, and food carts that line the popular neighborhood.
This map, featuring everything from wood-fired Mormon cuisine to wildly creative cocktails, will get you started. Just remember to save some room for gelato.
To tighten things up, we limited this map to just what you can find on Southeast Division, but don’t miss some of the breathtaking bites on neighboring Southeast Clinton, like seafood standby Jacqueline, or the original outpost of Scandinavian breakfast cafe Broder. For a list focused on that area, check out this map.
—Additional reporting by Thom Hilton and Paolo Bicchieri
Palomar
The kitchen at this ’50s-Havana themed bar, with its strawberry-sherbet-leather chairs and dangerously good blended daiquiris, was taken over by Imperial and Bullard alumnus Ricky Bella in late 2022. Highlights of the food menu include tostadas with jackfruit ropa vieja, bright shrimp and tuna ceviche with avocado and pineapple, and rotating flavors of tres leches cake for diners to enjoy while sipping Cuba libres or mojitos.
Akadi
Under a canopy of hanging plants and surrounded by art, diners at this eclectic African restaurant rip off bites of springy fufu to dunk in intricately spiced and savory oxtail stew, sipping soursop banana lemonade between bites. Meals here should start with grilled suya tofu skewers, coated in a powdery peanut spice blend, followed by the restaurant’s jollof meal, highlighting umami-rich jollof rice as well as custardy sweet plantains. Another stunner: the restaurant’s alloco poisson, crispy fried fish with caramelized plantains and jalapeño relish. Wrap the meal up with puff puffs, Nigerian mini-doughnuts, for dessert.
Double Dragon
Southeast Division cocktail bar and restaurant Double Dragon is cozy and cool inside, but its spacious patio is the main attraction during the warmer months. Sitting on a triangle of lower Division, the roofed outdoor space is great for chatting with groups of friends, listening to the bar’s always on-point playlists, and enjoying a thick-cut pork belly banh mi and crispy French fries with sambal aioli. For indoor folks, the spot is great for date night with its low lighting and wide range of tropical and smoky cocktails.
Scottie’s Pizza Parlor
This classic East Coast–style pizza counter is dedicated to paying its employees a living wage and using locally available produce on its thin crusted, generously sauced pies. Although the standard margherita and “Hawaii 5-0-5” with pineapple, pepperoni, and New Mexico green chile are excellent choices, the real move is the “defino,” a 16-inch “granny-style” square Sicilian pizza that Scottie’s tops with two kinds of mozzarella and garlic oil. They sell a limited quantity each day, so early orders are encouraged. Scottie’s also has a pay-it-forward program, so customers can buy an extra slice of pizza or a whole pie for a hungry Portlander.
Nuestra Cocina
A stalwart Portland Mexican restaurant, the red-accented Nuestra Cocina serves quintessential dishes like chorizo-stuffed masa cakes and carne asada tacos. The bar boasts a variety of tequilas and mezcals for margaritas like the de Granada, made with pomegranate and ginger, or the Cocina Especial, with chile arbol-infused tequila that makes a spicy finish to a meal alongside Grand Marnier flan or chocolate pound cake with cinnamon ice cream.
Reel M Inn
A dive bar in its purest form, this local haunt is open until 2:30 a.m. The wait for its famous fried chicken and jojos (monster-sized potato wedges) can be a bit long, but you can pass the time in classic dive bar fashion with a few stiff drinks and a round of pool.
Molly J. Smith/Eater Portland
Mestizo
Mestizo is many wonderful things: It’s a refreshingly airy and well-lit space, it’s gluten-free, and it’s host to a bevy of chef pop-ups and charity events. It’s also a really great everyday, neighborhood Latin American restaurant, with playful dishes like shrimp ceviche, empanada sampler flights, coconut-fried oysters with Fresno chili jam, and flan with Colombian coffee whipped cream. The cocktail menu includes all the sweet and summery hits, like margaritas, Palomas, Pisco sours, and daiquiris, plus some fun riffs like a mezcal Negroni with chocolate bitters
Kati Portland
This dedicated meat-free Thai restaurant is a favorite of Portland vegetarians, featuring main dishes loaded with fried tofu, soft tofu, tempeh, or veggies. Specialties include the crispy tempeh, served in a sweet-and-tangy tamarind sauce with yellow noodles, the standard-but-delightful Kati Pad Thai, and rich panang curry with young peppercorn.
Bollywood Theater
Bollywood Theater has developed a reputation for dishes like its kati roll, a Kolkatan paratha wrap filled with paneer or chicken. Vegetarians will find the house-made paneer very satisfying, whether served in a tikka bowl or in a tomato and cashew curry. No matter what you order, prepare for nuanced combinations of flavors laced with freshly imported spices from several regions of India. Wash it all down with a mango lassi or hot-or-cold masala chai.
Oma’s Hideaway
From the team behind Gado Gado, the rainbow-accented Oma’s Hideaway sees diners feasting daily on Malaysian and Chinese dishes, like corn fritters with sweet chili peanut sauce, flaky layered roti with curry dip, and the heaping wonton mee plate with pork and shrimp wontons, char siu pork belly, and chewy noodles. When available, the crispy filet-o-fishball sandwich is a must. In the warmer months, one can grab a seat on its spacious back patio or at one of the restaurant’s front patio booths, where one can dine among the buzz of Southeast Division.
Lauretta Jean’s
What once was a farmer’s market booth has since expanded into a bright and cheery bakery on Division. Buttery crusts give just the right amount of flaky goodness to inventive and classic fruit pies like tart cherry and raspberry chiffon, or quiches like bacon caramelized onion Swiss. After operating as a takeout window for much of the pandemic, Lauretta Jean’s since reopened its remodeled interior, serving slices, pastries, coffee, and tea. Larger orders can also be placed through the weekly bake sale.
Ruthie’s
Down a short alleyway, tucked into the back corner of the patio adjoining cocktail bar Someday, one will find Portland’s only seasonal, wood-fired Mormon food truck. Ruthie’s quickly rose to prominence in 2021, appearing on best-of lists and Netflix as Aaron Kiss and Collin Mohr consistently sold out of rockfish sliders on housemade rolls, over-the-top potato salads, and massive bone-in pork chops, inspired by the church cookbooks of Mohr’s grandmother. Those in the know pay attention to the cart’s Instagram, which has regular updates on new dishes.
Ruthie’s
Pinolo Gelato
Portland’s famous Salt & Straw serves its outside-the-box flavors like pear and blue cheese on Southeast Division, but the lines can be brutal. Skip the wait — or at least dramatically decrease it — by heading to this artful gelateria, with flavors like Sicilian pistachio, rich and buttery hazelnut, and fior de latte, the creamy “flower of milk.” Rotating dairy-free sorbets change with the season including a bright, citrusy tangerine.
Cornet Custard
With the addition of Cornet Custard in May 2024, Southeast Division has the complete frozen treat quartet: ice cream at Salt & Straw, frozen yogurt at Eb & Bean, gelato at Pinolo Gelato, and now, creamy custard. From the much-missed Naomi Pomeroy and Mika Paredes, Cornet achieves its richly indulgent custard by using 12 egg yolks for every quart, aided by a multi-step whisking, tempering, and cooking process before being churned with fruits, nuts, and other flavors in an Italian gelato maker. The sunshine-filled storefront serves up scoops, or you can grab a pint to take home.
The Turning Peel
One of the Rose City’s newest sourdough pizza places sits right on Division Street. After getting into sourdough during the start of the pandemic, owner Candy Yiu planted the Turning Peel in the former Malka space to sling sourdough Neapolitan pies pies. Classic flavors like pepperoni and margherita dance with pies topped with garlic and arugula or a truffle mushroom medley on a menu that also includes salads, soups, and herby marinated olive starters. A zero-waste ethos also sees any leftover pizza dough become next day’s pizza bread, free to take. Round out any order with individually served tiramisu or cheesecake.
The Turning Peel
By Zoe Baillargeon
By Ben Coleman
By Katrina Yentch
