The Top 28 Places to Drink Near The Paper Bridge
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- James Beard Awards 2026 · Winner · Outstanding Bar
- James Beard Awards 2025 · Nominee · Outstanding Bar
- 50 Best #63 · North America's 50 Best Bars
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The horseshoe bar juts into a low-ceilinged room lit by fairy lights, which tells you most of what you need to know before the first drink arrives. This is a cocktail bar with serious craft credentials and a named spot on Difford's Guide, but it wears that lightly. Off-duty bartenders from around Portland fill the stools, which is either the best endorsement or a sign you'll have to work harder to get the bartender's attention.
- Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
- Portland Monthly The Best Bars in Portland
- Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. West
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- Spirited Awards 2025 · Top 4 Finalist · Best U.S. Hotel Bar
- Spirited Awards 2024 · Top 4 Finalist · Best U.S. Hotel Bar
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide
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- Esquire The Best Bars in America
- Portland Monthly The Best Bars in Portland
- Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. West
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The rolling ladders are not decorative. They reach a full twelve feet to access shelves of over 1,500 bottles lining the bare brick walls of this former piano-store stockroom, and the bartenders use them. A thick bound menu catalogs everything by region and spirit type, library-style, because the name is sincere. It's a serious whiskey bar that takes the bit all the way, and the room is dramatic enough that even non-whiskey people tend to stay longer than planned.
- Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
- Spirited Awards 2024 · Top 4 Finalist · World’s Best Spirits Selection
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Redwood paneling climbs to a vaulted ceiling lit by stained glass skylights, and a sign on the wall politely warns guests to watch their language. Huber's is a bar that has been around forever, and it shows in the best possible way, with tableside Flaming Spanish Coffees set ablaze by bartenders who have clearly done this before. Old Portland money and curious newcomers share the room, and nobody seems to check their phone.
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Rank 13. Clyde Common
Cocktail Bar
The zinc-topped bar inside the Ace Hotel is where Jeffrey Morgenthaler built his reputation, and Portland's cocktail crowd hasn't forgotten it. Clyde Common is technically a big, open dining hall, but the bar runs the show here, with vintage stools filling up fast under a double-height ceiling loud with conversation. The food is genuinely good, but nobody's coming just for dinner.
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The name lies a little: Teardrop is a square room with painted concrete walls, and the curve comes from the island bar itself, which bends the whole space into something warmer than the bones suggest. It's a serious cocktail lounge, the kind where the menu moves between classics, originals, and borrowed recipes from people who've thought hard about this stuff. Classic films flicker overhead, the lighting is kind, and a quiet Monday still feels like somewhere worth being.
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Rank 15. Oven and Shaker
Italian
A long sloping entry leads you up into a warm, modern room where communal high tables split the space between a serious bar and proper wood-fired pizza. Ryan Magarian's cocktail program is the draw here, pairing classics and house originals with Italian street food from the kitchen. The design reads clean rather than cozy, which suits the crowd that comes as much for the drinks as anything coming out of that oven.
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Rank 17. Hale Pele
Tiki Cocktail Bar
A small bridge over a little moat takes you from a residential stretch of Northeast Broadway into what is, with commitment, a full tiki immersion. Woven palm walls, bamboo rafters, illuminated pufferfish, and three hand-carved tiki gods loom over the sunken bar while intermittent thunder rumbles and wisps of volcano smoke drift through. The rum-based cocktails are the actual point of the exercise, and nobody here seems to mind.
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Rank 20. Yaowarat
Thai
- Esquire Kangaroo Martini · The Best Martinis in America
- The New York Times The Restaurant List
- The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Portland, Ore., Right Now
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The 65-foot marble bar is the first thing you clock, backed by a wall of taps that looks like it was built for a congregation. Jackknife is a high-volume neighborhood bar attached to the Sentinel Hotel, heavy rock on the speakers and a toasted-oak floor that leans more saloon than cocktail lounge. The short cocktail list skews toward house drinks. Come for draft beer and a loud night out, not a quiet first-date conversation.
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Rank 23. Kask bar
Cocktail Bar
From the street it reads like a shop, and inside it's barely bigger than one, with around thirty seats tucked under warm light and a hefty oak bar. Kask is a cocktail bar with a leather-bound list organized by spirit, leaning hard on amaro, sherry, and vermouth. The drinks skew classical without being stiff about it. Small rooms either feel intimate or claustrophobic, and this one lands on the right side.
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Rank 24. Jake's Famous Crawfish
Seafood
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Rank 28. Palomar
Cuban-Inspired Cocktail Bar
- Spirited Awards 2024 · Top 4 Finalist · Best U.S. Restaurant Bar
- Spirited Awards 2025 · Top 4 Finalist · Best U.S. Restaurant Bar
- Portland Monthly The Best Bars in Portland