This Pearl District Spanish restaurant serves dishes like Painted Hills beef croquettes with manchego or Yukon Gold patatas bravas in an open, airy space, paired with cocktails incorporating sherry and house syrups. Can Font also specializes in paella, with six varieties including squid ink with shellfish and king salmon with cherry tomatoes.

Walking into Via Delizia, the first thing that greets diners is a looming faux olive tree and walls depicting a rambling street in Italy. The most casual of the Italian restaurants in the Pearl, Via Delizia started as a cafe focused on gelato and pastries, and later expanded to a full restaurant serving fresh pastas, pizza, and salads. In the mornings, locals flock to the trattoria for Italian-style espressos and the black pearl Benedict, a twist on the classic with apple balsamic creme sauce. And it’s impossible to leave without at least one scoop of the restaurant’s gelato, which has held the neighborhood’s attention for more than 15 years.

A sleeper hit that has been in the neighborhood for many years, Yama’s uniformed sushi chefs churn out some of the most thoughtful sushi and sashimi in the neighborhood. While some flashy specialty rolls and an Instagram-friendly tuna tower draw a crowd, the hand-scrawled specials are where it’s at, featuring everything from Mirugai giant clam to kobe beef rolls topped with foie gras.

One of the rare spots in town where Portlanders can hear the lilt of Italian spoken at tables around them, Piazza Italia transports in the most magical way. With football jerseys hanging from the ceiling, Piazza Italia is casual enough to wander in on a whim for a game played on the restaurant’s many TVs; still, its vast wine offerings and heaping plates of house-made pappardelle make it an impressive choice for first dates. That pappardelle is the one pasta made in house, and while it’s only featured on one wild boar ragu dish on the menu, it can (and should) be subbed out on any other pasta entree for a small charge.

Cool Moon Ice Cream has been quietly and consistently scooping fun and inventive flavors of ice cream and sorbet for more than a decade, making it one of the oldest ice cream shops in Northwest Portland. Perched on the edge of the splash pad waterworks at Jameson Park that draws the neighborhood’s youngest residents, it could potentially have survived the years by the sheer fact that kids love ice cream. But with flavors like kulfi rose and Thai iced tea, this ice cream shop would thrive on any corner in Portland.

Andina emerged in 2003 as a darling of the Portland food scene, and has defied all restaurant longevity odds to remain a top spot in the Pearl. Andina was serving lime-scented quinoa salad before quinoa exploded in the health food market, a nod to the native ingredients and rich food culture of owner Doris Rodriguez de Platt’s hometown in Peru. The restaurant’s longstanding hits, like the citrusy ceviche cinco elementos or the hearty braised beef seco a la nortena, remain stalwarts, but no order should omit the restaurant’s anticuchos — the impossibly tender beef heart may be some of the city’s finest.

In this restaurant and bar space off the park blocks, two concepts: On one side, at De Noche, chef Miguel Manuel Martinez serves a beautiful evening tasting menu, showcasing seasonal treats like strawberries or asparagus in aguachiles or moles, respectively. On the other, at Bar Comala, crowds of locals sip agave cocktails in Nick and Norah glasses alongside tri-colored quesadillas and potato taquitos. It’s hard to go wrong, either way.

This Park Blocks bar is one of those spots where there’s always something going on: a drag show, live jazz, open mics, trivia. In an intimate brick-lined space, couples chat over coupe glasses filled with ruby-hued whiskey drinks made with house bitters or shrubs; on nights when the bar gets crowded, park-side outdoor tables provide a little respite, especially on warm days.

The owners of Khao San wanted recreate the vibrant street food of Thailand in the heart of Portland. While Khao San features Thai fare often spotted in American Thai restaurants — pad thai, larb — the restaurant stands out for dishes like hoy joh, a snack of pork shrimp, crab, and water chestnut wrapped in bean curd and deep-fried.

MEC, as its known, will almost always greet diners with a sizeable wait, so it’s best to make a reservation to enjoy dishes like meats roasted in its 700-degree oven, lemony herbaceous potatoes, and crispy-lamb-topped hummus. Smaller groups can also enjoy food and drinks in the sleek subway tiled bar, with bare Edison lights dripping from the ceiling.

Teardrop is a bar that could be easy to miss on its sleepy block, and though it doesn’t particularly call attention to itself, it’s one of Portland’s most influential cocktail lounges: The dramatic horseshoe-shaped bar, a whole lot of mood, and some of Portland’s top bartenders can be found inside. The menu breaks down the drinks into categories, like Supple and Herbal, Arid and Aromatic, and Rich and Robust, making it easy for even the most indecisive of cocktail drinkers to land on the ideal beverage.

An exercise in Miami-style excess dropped into downtown Portland, Janken is an elaborate and fun destination spot for dates or group dining. Sippable cocktails like the hazelnut espresso martini or the ube and lychee rum soda get the party started before dinner, which can end up as extravagant as a show: pork belly with rum-compressed pineapple arrives under a cloche in a plume of smoke, while paper-thin wagyu is grilled on a hot stone at the table. The crispy-skinned Peking duck, served here with pancakes, is a must-order.

Bartenders at this neon-lit, stylish cocktail lounge slide tequila cocktails and slushies across the brass counter, while 20 and 30somethings dunk soy-glazed fried chicken in kimchi ranch. Here, mezcal is infused with bell pepper, rum gets coconut-washed, and beverages come decked out in peacock colors with many-shaped ice. The wonton nachos, topped with pork curry and cheddar chili, are a particular standout.

This tasting menu restaurant has existed in several different iterations under several different chefs in its short tenure, but its current setup, under remarkable young talent Jose “Lalo” Camarena — a 23 year old — has introduced an exciting new era for República. A reinterpretation of higado encebollado, or liver and onions, swipes rich veal liver over brioche checkers, brightened with serrano gel and pickled onion. Parcels of fish tell the story of the Battle of Puebla, incorporating French and Mexican culinary traditions, as an alternative to the deterritorialized margaritas and tacos eaten on Cinco de Mayo. Menus change often, but a through line true of Republica since its opening date: Every dish arrives with context, be it historical, agricultural, or personal.