The Best Places in Kerns

Tucked into a 30-seat room inside Phuket Cafe, Langbaan runs themed multi-course Thai dinners built around a specific region or historical period, a different framework each seating. The menu says five courses; chef Earl Nissom sends out more than twelve. It took the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant in 2024. The sommelier is often on the floor to talk through the wine pairings, which, given the food, is a conversation worth having.

1. James Beard Awards 2024 · Winner · Outstanding Restaurant
2. The Infatuation Infatuation’s Highest-Rated Restaurants In America
3. Condé Nast Traveler The 23 Best Restaurants in Portland, Oregon

The wine list runs from cult Champagnes to obscure Loire Valley producers, which tells you a lot about what you're walking into. Davenport is a cozy neighborhood restaurant on East Burnside where the cooking is technique-forward without being theatrical, rotating through whatever ingredients are at their peak. The room is sophisticated without making anyone feel underdressed, which in Portland is harder to pull off than it sounds.

1. Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants
2. Condé Nast Traveler The 23 Best Restaurants in Portland, Oregon
3. Portland Monthly The 50 Best Restaurants in Portland Right Now

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Winner · Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific · Ryan Roadhouse
2. James Beard Awards 2025 · Nominee · Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific · Ryan Roadhouse
3. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific · Ryan Roadhouse

Tucked behind a parking lot, Han Oak is the kind of Korean restaurant where you might have to step over a toy truck to reach the courtyard. The chef runs it next door to his own house, which tells you everything about the register: clamorous, buzzing, and genuinely homestyle. The seasonal menu leans into braised short ribs and bold pantry flavors, and the cocktail list throws gochujang into a mezcal drink without apologizing for it.

1. Eater The Best New Restaurants in America
2. Condé Nast Traveler The 23 Best Restaurants in Portland, Oregon
3. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Portland, Ore., Right Now

1. Time Out The 19 best restaurants in Portland, Oregon
2. Portland Monthly The 50 Best Restaurants in Portland Right Now

Navarre is a candlelit neighborhood restaurant on NE 28th where you order by checking boxes on a clipboard with a pencil, like a very pleasant pop quiz. The menu roams the globe in small plates, nearly everything comes in half portions, and the wine list runs about 80 glasses deep. Weekend brunch means eggs ten ways, a mountain of crusty bread, and specials served with oversized vintage spoons. It's on Portland Monthly's and Time Out's best-of lists.

1. Time Out The 19 best restaurants in Portland, Oregon
2. Portland Monthly The 50 Best Restaurants in Portland Right Now

Luce is a small Italian trattoria on East Burnside, with a checkerboard floor, floor-to-ceiling windows, and shelves of jarred things that make it feel like a mini-mart from a more graceful era. Antipasti run a few dollars, pastas come in half portions, and the house wine arrives in little tumblers. They don't take reservations, so the plan is to show up and look relaxed about waiting. It has made both the Eater and Portland Monthly best-of lists.

1. Portland Monthly The 50 Best Restaurants in Portland Right Now
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants and Food Carts in Portland

The wood-fired oven scents the whole room before you've found a seat, which is the idea. Ken's is a casual pizza spot on SE 28th where the dough ferments long and the crust lands somewhere between Neapolitan and what Portland thinks pizza should be, which turns out to be a persuasive argument. Ken Forkish runs the show, and the wine list is a step above what the no-reservations vibe might lead you to expect. It placed on 50 Top Pizza USA.

1. 50 Top Pizza #43 · 50 Top Pizza World
2. 50 Top Pizza #10 · 50 Top Pizza USA

The open oven sits at the center of the room like a piece of furniture someone actually thought about, which tells you a lot about Grana before the pizza arrives. This is a contemporary Neapolitan pizza restaurant on East Burnside, bright and carefully put together without feeling precious. The dough runs high-hydration and long-fermented, San Marzano tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella alongside whatever's local. It landed at 26 on 50 Top Pizza USA.

1. 50 Top Pizza #26 · 50 Top Pizza USA

A tiny black box of a coffee shop on SE Stark, Puff Coffee comes with a Stumptown pedigree and the occasional line of devoted early arrivals out front. The focus is single-origin beans, served as drip or a tight espresso, with the shop's clean, minimal interior quietly offset by an E.T. figurine nestled among vintage coffee makers. For the less orthodox, shroom lattes with lion's mane and chaga round things out.

1. The Infatuation The 25 Best Coffee Shops In Portland
2. The Infatuation The ‘It’ Coffee Shops Across America Right Now

1. AAA Approved

1. Time Out The 19 best restaurants in Portland, Oregon

Heart is a Scandinavian-minimalist coffee shop on Burnside, and it's one of the places that helped put Portland on the third-wave map. The espresso leans light-roast, the pour-overs come with tasting notes like honeysuckle and cantaloupe, and there's no wifi, so nobody is camped out with a laptop and a single cortado. You drink the coffee, you look at the clean lines, and you leave. The Infatuation lists it among Portland's best coffee shops.

1. The Infatuation The 25 Best Coffee Shops In Portland

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants and Food Carts in Portland

1. Time Out The 19 best restaurants in Portland, Oregon

Soro Soro is a small Korean coffee shop on East Burnside where the drinks come layered like geology, with black sesame-pandan cream, crispy rice, and Okinawan brown sugar. Yuzu sodas and cherry blossom slushes sit alongside cat-face cheesecakes and dog-shaped cookies, so expect a line of people photographing their order before anyone takes a sip. The Infatuation put it on its list of Portland coffee shops.

1. The Infatuation The 25 Best Coffee Shops In Portland