Portland’s Newest Restaurant Openings for September 2025
At the Hoxton Hotel, Pamana serves Filipino-inspired brunch like pancakes with ube crème anglaise.
Portland’s small but mighty Filipino dining scene is growing. Two beloved concepts—a former food cart and an itinerant pop-up—landed themselves brick-and-mortar restaurants in late summer. Though one will be for a limited residency at an Old Town hotel, the other has moved into a permanent location in the Boise neighborhood, in the space once home to Chinese dumpling restaurant XLB.
Ken Tran and TJ Cruz first opened Sun Rice in 2021 as a residency at the innovative, now soon to close cocktail bar Deadshot. Until 2023, diners could pair their clarified daiquiris with Cruz’s Filipino- and Southeast Asian–inspired menu: chicken katsu adobo, ube doughnuts, pork belly silog with fried eggs. After leaving Deadshot, the pair brought Sun Rice to a kiosk at the Moxy Hotel for a stint while occasionally hosting pop-ups. Then last August they took over the former XLB space, serving breakfast sandwiches, silog plates, and those ube doughnuts in the mornings. Their greatest hits—including the eponymous lemongrass- and garlic-scented Sun Rice—show up for dinner service. The ever-prolific restaurateur and consultant Ketsuda “Nan” Chaison helped with a cocktail menu.
Sun Rice’s new digs on N Williams Avenue.
Fans of the now-closed Filipino food cart Baon Kainan spent the summer awaiting the next move from owners Geri and Ethan Leung. The married couple had wowed Portlanders since they moved their Seattle pop-up to a food cart in NE Portland, winning praise for a small but thoughtful menu of next generation Filipino cooking: chicken and vegetarian adobos, kare kare fries, pancit baon. Now they’re back, with a new name. Pamana, which means “legacy” or “heritage” in Tagalog, opened within the Hoxton Hotel on September 3, serving a Pinoy take on brunch: pork or veggie lumpia, breakfast sandwiches with longanisa or fried chicken and adobo gravy, and silog with options like pork belly and crispy eggplant. A dinner menu will follow later in fall, and the residency is scheduled to run for six months.
Other Openings to Know
Bialy Bird and Matcha Freak
opened aug 23
In yet another pop-up turned brick-and-mortar story, Adam Thompson—former member of Thao & the Get Down Stay Down—started boiling and baking bialys while working at Bernstein’s Bagels in 2022. Now, he’s slinging his savory pastries at the Pantry, a collaborative production and retail space on SE 14th and Morrison. He’s accompanied by Katy Connors and her café, Matcha Freak, which joins the new wave of buzzy matcha shops popping up around town.
Alchemy Cider
opened aug 23
Portland’s already impressive cider scene just got bigger with the opening of Alchemy Cider’s taproom on SE Ankeny Street. The bar will pull from 30 taps, adding other local ciders, beer, wine, and nonalcoholic options to complement Alchemy’s lineup. The gothic-inspired space, with lots of blacks, golds, and emeralds, will soon be joined by a currently unnamed food cart.
Frontera Sur
Opened late aug
In spring of 2023, the venerable diner Zell’s Café abruptly ended its 40-year run, citing rising labor and supply costs. Two years (and one short lived diner) later, the corner of SE 14th and Morrison is bustling again, thanks to Frontera Sur, from the owners of Sellwood’s Harney Street Café. The restaurant serves Mexican- and Guatemalan-inspired breakfast like chilaquiles, birria omelets, breakfast tacos, and tres leches waffles in the former Zell’s dining room. The café also makes other Guatemalan and Mexican dishes, like taquitos, gorditas, and kak’ik, a traditional Mayan turkey stew, during its dinner service.
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