Amid dark times, Portland restaurants delivered more than their share of joy this year. Perhaps that’s why locals named the food scene as a primary reason for staying in town in a March survey , behind only nature and the weather. Few things make us more optimistic about the city’s future than discovering a world-class restaurant in our own backyard.

Looking back on a year’s worth of great meals, some of the best things we ate came from surprising locales: cafes and food carts , dive bars and bakeries and pop-ups (so many pop-ups ). Sure, Portland has never had much patience for stuffy fine dining, but that seems doubly true today, when rising food costs, nonexistent investment funds and aggressive immigration enforcement have disrupted the food system, making opening

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