Restaurants in Portland ME

Portland is nothing if not a city of creative cheap eats, so don’t neglect local bakeries and coffee shops when trolling for quick or economical meals. My favorite bakery in New England, hands-down, is Scratch, 416 Preble St, in nearby South Portland (tel. 207/799-0668). Legendary for their sourdough bagels (folks think nothing of waiting in line outside for over an hour to grab a dozen), Scratch also offers specialty breads, pastries, and a dessert case with everything from high-end cakes to cereal milk cheese cakes and nouveau interpretations of your favorite grade school cafeteria snacks. The best part? Scratch couldn’t be less proprietary about their baking secrets if they tried. Drop in for a bagel-making class, a sourdough tune-up, or a daylong “baking as mindfulness” experience, and leave with a loaf of your own bread.

Among the many coffee shops around the city, I frequent both Bard Coffee at 185 Middle Street (tel. 207/899-4788), open 7:30am–4pm daily, and Tandem Coffee + Bakery at 742 Congress Street (tel. 207/805-1887), a former gas-station that now features beans from Tandem’s East Bayside roastery, terrific pies (sweet and savory) from baker Brianna Holt, and a minimalist sipping space that encourages honest-to-god interaction (read: no outlets, no Wi-Fi; open 7am to 6pm, 8am to 6pm weekends).

For pizza, grab giant Sicilian slices from Slab (25 Preble St.; tel. 207/245-3088) or adventurous toppings and a nice bar from OTTO (576 Congress St., plus five other locations around greater Portland; tel. 207/358-7090).

Portland also claims to be the original home of the Italian sandwich—which may have been the original sub sandwich in America—and locals maintain the best example can still be found at the purported inventor of this creation, Amato’s (71 India St.; 📞 207/773-1682), in what’s left of Portland’s Italian neighborhood.

Where to Picnic in Portland

Portland and its surrounding area is so stuffed with picnic spots you might need a week to sample them all. For starters, don’t miss the hilltop Eastern Promenade (pictured above) with expansive views of Casco Bay. The Western Promenade, reached across town via Congress Street, has distant views of the White Mountains and often free musical performances in summer. 

For a tranquil water view, there’s Back Cove. Just a few miles north of Portland along Route 1 in Falmouth, the Maine Audubon Society’s Gilsland Farm Sanctuary is one of the best picnic spots I’ve found. And, of course, the beaches and parks in Cape Elizabeth are all superlative picnic spots. In metro Portland, either visit a food truck (see below) or make a quick fly-by of Standard Baking Company for great baked goods, sweets, and coffee. Cape Elizabeth has a few general stores good for stocking up prebeach; they’re heavy on sodas, beer, and candy, but you can also score an Italian sandwich or an ice-cream treat at most of them.

Food Trucks

Leave out the bazillion food trucks that have sprung up around Portland in recent years, and you’re leaving out an integral part of the city’s food scene—not least because the food trucks of today are often the buzzy terrestrial restaurants of tomorrow. You’ll find them parked all over the city and its outskirts: here and there along Congress and Commercial Streets, at Cape Elizabeth’s Fort Williams Park, even out on Peaks Island. But the two most reliable spots to find a bevy of food-truck eats are along the Eastern Promenade, where as many as a dozen might line the street between Congress and Walnut on any summer or fall day, and parked outside the city’s bazillion brewery taprooms, many of which cluster around the East Bayside neighborhood and the off-peninsula Industrial Way district. 

Among Portlanders favorites are Bite Into Maine (tel. 207/289-61420) a regular at Fort Williams and at Allagash Brewing Company, serving traditional lobster rolls and out-there variations with chipotle, wasabi, and more. Among my favorites Among my favorites are Tacos del Seoul (tel. 207/522-1958), which brings Korean-Mexican fusion to the brewery circuit and Mr. Tuna (tel. 207/805-1240), an Eastern Prom regular between April and October serving eat-on-the-go sushi (love the tuna-tataki burrito). Mr. Tuna is so popular it now has a bricks-and-mortar restaurant year round at 83 Middle Street.

Download the Maine-made app Food Truckalico to see which truck is where when.