There is little that can’t be caught, raised, foraged, or grown in Oregon. From Tibetan purple barley to young ginger to red dulse seaweed, there’s always something in season for local makers to work with. And there’s an ethos of collaboration rather than competition here, with many delicious results, from barrel-aged teas to sambal Chex mix-studded chocolate bars. 

The artsy, countercultural spirit that made Portland an indie music mecca in the ’90s carried over into the food scene in the ’00s: The city was at the forefront of the craft beer revolution, the American bean-to-bar chocolate industry, and the artisan cheese movement.

Today, you can find fantastic food in every neighborhood and in every type of establishment, from dive bars to coffee shops to airport restaurants. But for those who want to take home an edible piece of the city, here are the items you won’t want to miss.

2147 Northwest York Street 
(971) 400-8012

Essentially a big cooler next to a few shelves of rose scented body oils and scrubs, this pint-size shop on an industrial block sells a half dozen flavors of creamy, barely sweet nut milks bottled in old-fashioned glass milk jars. The cold, incredibly rich milks hit the spot like an ice cream cone on a hot day. Sold within a day or two of being “milked,” these super fresh hazelnut, almond, and cashew-based nut milks come in surprising, sometimes colorful, rotating flavors, from blue belle (with spirulina and cinnamon) to dragon fruit. The vanilla hazelnut is a sure bet for a creamy, just sweet enough, vanilla bean-specked taste of Oregon’s official nut, but don’t miss the peach almond when in season. It tastes like a grown-up version of the addictive Orange Julius I loved as a kid. As the milks are all unpasteurized with zero preservatives, their shelf life is four to six days, but I usually finish my bottle in a day.

3014 Northeast Killingsworth Street (Pop-up at The People’s Yoga on Thursdays)

35112 Soutwest Bald Peak Road, Hillsboro (Farm Shop open on Tuesdays and Fridays)

These melt-in-your-mouth mini bundt cakes don’t have a lot of bells and whistles, yet they stand out in a city filled with world-class bakeries due to their perfectly moist, dense texture and subtle flavor of butter and vanilla balanced with a tangy lemon glaze. The golden cakes are made using Nigerian American founder Prentice Onayemi’s family recipe. According to Onayemi, the multicolored eggs are the secret, laid by Foglight Farms’ 16 different breeds of chickens that roam free on the three-acre organic farm. If you are checking your baggage, pick up a jar of artfully arranged farmstead small-batch pickles as well.

1090 Southeast Belmont Street
(503) 236-6302

This chunky, Singaporean all-purpose condiment is slightly spicy with a grown-up sweetness from loads of caramelized shallots and red onions—and some funk from belachan (a Malaysian shrimp paste). Nearly all the ingredients are organic and Oregon-grown. It’s made by local Singapore transplant Holly Ong, who started her business as a buzzy underground supper club and pivoted to a packaged product when COVID-19 hit. You can use this sambal as Ong does in Singaporean Hainanese chicken rice, or in nasi lemak, Malaysia’s national dish of coconut rice, fried anchovies, roasted peanuts, cucumber slices, and a hard-boiled egg. But don’t stop there. Try it as a hot dog topping, on a shrimp-stuffed omelet, or as I do in slow-cooked brothy beans, topped with avocado, onion, chili crisp, and a squeeze of lemon. Pick it up at Market of Choice Belmont, a cavernous and colorful family-owned grocery store that’s famous within the local community for supporting Oregon’s makers. While there, you can stock up on a full range of local foods to round out your wish list. Jams, pickles, hot sauce, vegan jerky, chocolates? It stocks a dozen great local options of each, conveniently identified with an “L” on the shelves.

4243 Southeast Belmont Street, Unit 200 
(503) 607-8545

Never Coffee stands out in a java town with its buck-the-trend focus on the art of blending rather than single-origin beans. Each origin is at its peak freshness for only a few months a year; Never Coffee aims to deliver that  peak freshness all year long by adjusting the mix of beans as different origins come into season. Each blend comes in its own boldly colored bag, which lends a rainbow of color to the small, minimalist coffee shop adorned with a few paintings from under-the-radar local artists. Go for the Flowers blend, which comes in a carnation-colored bag that was created to mimic the bright tea-like flavor of Ethiopian coffee. When I visited, the Flowers blend contained a combination of washed Nicaraguan and Tanzanian beans. Don’t leave without treating yourself to one of the flavored lattes, which prove coffee drinks can be as sophisticated as cocktails. The Midnight Oil, heady with fennel, star anise and black licorice, works especially well with oat milk. And if you fall in love with it, you can even order the syrup from their website in four-ounce bottles.

110 Southeast Washington Street
(971) 254-3935

500 Northwest 23rd Avenue
(503) 206-7451

After making it big as the founder of Tazo Tea Company, the late Portland native Steven Smith came back to town to experiment with unusual, small-batch, and top-quality teas. Located in Produce Row, the city’s inner eastside hub of small maker kitchens and warehouses by the old railroad tracks, this is the spot for tea lovers. A visit here also offers the chance to see the city’s charmingly unpolished manufacturing roots. Enter the doors near the loading dock on Washington Street, and you’ll find a tasting room and café with subdued green-gray walls and mod black chandeliers. While you wait for your flight of nitro or “fruitsmithed” teas, you can sniff dozens of unusual blends displayed under tall glass domes. A rotating selection of limited release teas embodies the kind of maker collaborations Portland is famous for, such as a rich Indian Assam that’s aged in neighboring Westward Whiskey’s old barrels before it’s mixed with rose petals and cocoa nibs. Other great choices include White Petal, a delicate shade-dried white tea with osmanthus and chamomile petals, and on the opposite side of the spectrum, the three-year-aged Shou Pu-Erh, which is complex and earthy.

81 Southeast Yamhill Street
(503) 208-6618

Inside the sprawling Cargo emporium, a 30-year-old home goods institution, a string of postcards hanging overhead directs you to this shop within a shop. Opened by a former buyer from Providore Fine Foods, one of Portland’s most renowned specialty shops, Postcard Bookshop focuses exclusively on travel. Its collection of guidebooks, cookbooks, and novels are ingeniously organized by destination. This is the place to go to get excited about your next big trip—or to take home a book about Portland from the Oregon section. For an only-in-Portland story about communal living and food, choose Group Living and Other Recipes. It documents a decade of unconventional cooperative living by local ramen noodle entrepreneur Lola Milholland.

2340 Northeast Sandy Boulevard
(503) 232-1010

Owner Kaie Wellman’s knack for stacking the shelves with unusual artisan products from Oregon and around the globe has made Providore Fine Foods the standard bearer for top-of-the-line groceries in Portland for 40 years. The artistically curated shelves make every wedge of cheese and jar of spices feel like a priceless treasure. The elaborate themed display in the center of the store adds a splash of playfulness to the space. Depending on the season, the stellar produce department will feature wooden crates filled with jewel-like miniature Rubinette apples or ombré Rainier cherries. Bring home a bag of lacy, mineral-packed Oregon Seaweed Sundried Pacific Dulse to flavor test the West Coast’s emerging seaweed industry, which began a few decades after Maine led the way in establishing a market in the U.S. Unlike its East Coast counterpart, Oregon’s dulse has a frilly shape and delicate texture. Briefly seared in ghee or olive oil, it becomes a crispy chip that works great on creamy soups or vegetable curries. 

830 Northwest Everett Street
(503) 802-0755

In the heart of Portland’s Pearl District, you’ll find one of the city’s best specialty markets. This second-generation, family-owned shop stocks hard-to-find ingredients from around the world, with an especially strong selection of Middle Eastern foods, including jugs of Lebanese olive oil, bulgar, and a wide variety of lentils. But it’s their prepared foods that set the store apart from Portland’s other great markets. Walk past the espresso bar to the extra-long catering case, and you’ll find pinwheel-shaped savory sfiha, Lebanese mini pies filled with ground beef and warm spices, or a mélange of feta, labneh, and mozzarella cheeses—these are among my favorites of the savory offerings. And I always go home with a box of dainty ghraybeh cookies, snowy white rings decorated with a single blanched almond. With a delicate, crumbly texture reminiscent of a fine semolina pastry, they melt on your tongue and leave just a hint of almondy, buttery goodness.

3402 Southeast Division Street
(503) 987-0828

Located on one of the most pleasant stretches for window shopping in the city, Wellspent Market is where locals go to buy olive oil, small-batch condiments, and heirloom beans and grains. Their capers, grown in the volcanic soil of Italian island Pantelleria by Antonio Bonomo and Girolamo Giglio of La Nicchia, stand out for their floral, rounded flavor that balances their pungent saltiness. The team at Wellspent are experts at packing a lot into a small space, and you’ll find Fulamingo, a Japanese sake and snack food store, at the same address, as well as a wall lined with one of the city’s widest selections of ciders, vermouths, amaros, and aperitivo spirits (including Wilderton Aperitivo Co’s no-proof citrus aperitivo, which makes a great souvenir if you are checking luggage).

Southwest Park & Montgomery Streets
(503) 241-0032

No trip to Portland is complete without a visit to the city’s biggest farmers market. More than 100 stalls line the university’s massive green quad. Buskers fiddle, local chefs mingle, and families browse offerings with their kids. Depending on the season, you’ll find tender pink La Rosa del Veneto radicchio, locally famous Suncrest peaches, or half a dozen heirloom varieties of blueberries. You can fill your market tote with Hot Mama Salsa’s smoky, nuanced coffee chili oil; and hand-churned, rich and nutty cultured butter from Jacobs Creamery year round. But the hidden gem is the honey from Deck Family Farm, an organic, regenerative farm whose main business is grass-fed beef, pork, and poultry. The few jars of honey near the register might look like an afterthought, but the golden elixir tastes like marshmallow fluff kissed with citrus. 

935 Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard 
(503) 893-2614

The concrete floors, baby blue shelving, and salmon pink accents in this chocolate shop-café give it a whimsical, retro feel. Among the city’s many accomplished bean-to-bar makers, Sebastian Cisneros’ chocolate stands out for its silky texture and harmonious flavors, despite using some unusual ingredients (palo santo and Pop Rocks feature in two of his bars). Each bar is square, wrapped in thick paper folded origami-style, and sealed with a dab of colorful wax, like an old-fashioned envelope. I’m partial to the Bruno, made with conched coffee beans (instead of cocoa beans) and cocoa butter; and the Valentina, made with Ecuadorian cocoa and Canadian maple sugar—a sweet tribute to Cisneros’ half Ecuadorian, half Canadian daughter.

4438 Southeast Belmont Street
(971) 279-5530

With its mismatched teacups and avocado green-painted brick exterior, the city’s best spot for long-fermented, whole-grain sourdough breads winks at Portland’s use-what-you’ve-got, grunge past. The Saturday-only buckwheat black sesame loaf has a loyal following and sells out early, but no matter the day, you’re bound to find a loaf to your liking. All the breads, pastries, and bagels are baked with spelt, Khorasan, Red Fife, barley, or Einkorn flour, much of which comes from the organic, third-generation Camas Country Mill and farm in Eugene, Oregon. Bags of the Camas Country flour are for sale at the bakery; pick up some Sonoran White, one of the oldest surviving varieties of North American wheat, for a sweeter, nuttier flavor in recipes that call for all-purpose flour.