Travel Guide: Portland

We had such a wonderful time in Portland, Oregon! Graham spoke brilliantly at the design conference and I explored the city as much as possible during our four-day trip. There are so many terrific places to eat that it’s hard to put together a list of favorites, but I thought I’d write about a few highlights, just in case you’re planning a visit to Portland sometime soon.

We stayed at an Airbnb in the leafy Ladd’s Addition neighborhood. It was the perfect central location for us because G could quickly get downtown for his conference and everything else seemed relatively close. One of the best decisions we made was signing up for the bike share program in Portland. It only costs eight cents per minute—what a deal! Every day we both rode bicycles around town. The city has lots of bike lanes and is super easy to navigate because it’s divided into a four-part grid of northeast, northwest, southeast, and southwest.

Our first dinner was at Tusk, a bright and modern restaurant from the team behind Ava Gene’s. We didn’t have a reservation, but we found a spot at the bar. The food was spectacularly good: hummus, puffy charred flatbread, tomato-peach salad with jalapeño and almond, and chicken skewers seasoned with mustard oil. We’re still dreaming about all of it.

I loved the coffee at Coava, Stumptown, and Upper Left Roasters. One evening, I walked to Nimblefish for fantastic sushi. I also had to try a Blue Star donut, which I brought with me to the Portland Rose Garden and ate on a park bench overlooking the whole city. There’s a delightful café-spa called Kiva, where I had a relaxing massage followed by a mango-berry smoothie. Now I'm convinced all spas should have adjacent cafés.

You can bet I made my way to Powell’s bookstore. Nearby, we had lunch at Maurice, a chic luncheonette, and I wandered through many lovely home goods stores like Maak Lab, Canoe, and Field Trip. On our last evening, we had dinner at beautiful Ava Gene’s and even made a few new friends there. Portland, we’ll be back!