In the world of cornbread adjacent recipes, Po’Shines Cafe De La Soul might reign supreme. The restaurant’s cornmeal waffle is a menu staple, big enough to fill the plate and cooked to soft, honey brown perfection. It’s not designed to be eaten alone—any eater worth their salt in the South knows a good chicken and waffle when they see one, and that might just be Po’Shines’ calling card. Po’Shines serves their cornmeal waffle beneath three large, fried chicken wings, available all day and easy to douse in syrup. All things considered, the cornmeal waffle may have walked so the cronut could run.

What good is a barbecue joint that doesn’t offer a side of cornbread, really? Podnah’s Pit has been blessing Portlanders with Texas and Carolina-style meats for 14 years, offering an unpretentious, minimalist space for diners to dig into 12-hour-smoked pulled pork and 10-hour-smoked brisket with a skinny slice of cornbread. Podnah’s cornbread is skillet-cooked, savory with plenty of grease from the fry, and browned near the edges—primed and eager to please the “cornbread, not cake” purists.

Chef Maya Lovelace’s region-oriented restaurant Yonder might be known for every Southern dish but cornbread. Folks come for the sky-blue walls and doily-plated dishes of fried catfish and its pimento mac and cheese, but they stay for more than Instagram fodder: Buried deep in the menu is Lovelace’s stone-ground cornbread with sorghum butter, a love letter to her North Carolina roots. For non-Southerners, sorghum is the region’s best kept culinary secret: a thick, sweet molasses that improves just about everything it melts over. On occasion, Lovelace’s second venture, Mae, serves a cornbread with potlikker butter that gives her signature fried chicken a sharply seasoned counterpart.  

The folks over at Acadia serve up traditional Cajun fare like jambalaya and gumbo in their upscale bistro, and while the dinner menu never stays the same for too long, the side of buttermilk cornbread is a staple. Adding the modest side dish can be thought of as high-low dining. The buttermilk thickens the cornbread to a tender, fluffy texture, so diners will avoid the perils of slicing in and watching the bread crumble into pieces — a must for a fancy establishment that charges $6 for hushpuppies. 

Food-cart-turned-storefront The People’s Pig is all about the greatest hits of Southern cuisine—after all, if ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The restaurant smoked its way into the barbecued heart of Portland, offering a menu of beef brisket and barbecue pork alongside all types of meat rubbed every which way in a rustic North Williams location. The side of cast-iron baked cornbread is the much-needed starch for the meat-centric dishes, blackened to a crisp on the outside with moist, crumby goodness on the inside.

Food delivery favorite Portland Kettle isn’t the restaurant to slap a filter on for Instagram, but it is hiding a house-made gem behind its inoffensive spread of signature soups. Portland Kettle caters to those looking for a sweeter cornbread to sop up a bowl of chicken noodle, baked fresh each day in tall, cakey batches. The sugar lifts the salt of the soup, offering the ultimate comfort combination to get through the damp, grey Portland evenings.   

Bark City is keeping the good name of Portland food carts alive, settled into the Hawthorne Asylum pod and taking locals down home to the Carolinas with their barbecue trays, meat-heavy sandwiches and brisket nachos. The side of cornbread sits next to other classics of the region—potato salad, mac n cheese and coleslaw—and would make any Southerner proud with its crispy edges and mild, chew-and-you’ll-miss-it sweetness. Regulars know to pair the meal with a banana pudding milkshake. 

The no frills, no fuss team at South Food is a recent addition to the sprawling food cart pods of Hawthorne Asylum, committed to cooking the Southern classics the way they were meant to be cooked. The side of cornbread marries South Food’s fried chicken and pulled pork roast with a gritty, cornmeal-heavy flavor and a thick, rough crust. South Food refuses to skimp on portion, meaning the cornbread will last through each bite of chicken and won’t battle for sweetness with the coke and peanuts the meal demands.