New York Times names 2 Portland-area restaurants for best dishes in US

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – With help from 80s ice cream nostalgia and a "wine bar with fine-dining dreams," two Oregon restaurants made their way onto The New York Times' list of best dishes in America in 2024.

The New York Times said a variety of dishes made their 26-dish list, explaining, “Whether soups or sweets, a single tasting-menu course or a perfect ham sandwich, these are the bites from 2024 that will linger in our minds well into the new year."

Among the best dishes is the Cherries Jubilee Sundae from Sugarpine Drive-In.

The Troutdale restaurant offers a variety of soft serve and snacks on the banks of the Sandy River. However, the cherry sundae stood out to The New York Times.

"This seasonal sundae contains the cherry multiverse, with sweet and sour stone fruits playing their roles among the riot of textures. Shards of almond brittle and cubes of cherry almond baba rhum could stand alone, but here they’re set adrift on a sea of vanilla soft-serve and sour-cherry Jubilee sauce, the flavors combining to create a startlingly excellent entry to the cherry dessert canon,” The New York Times said.

Sugarpine Drive-In Co-founder Ryan Domingo told KOIN 6 News that the sundae was featured on the restaurant’s seasonal summer menu and was created with the Northwest Cherry Growers' Association as part of the restaurant’s “cherry month” special.

“For this sundae special we were inspired by the iconic Baskin Robbins ice cream flavor ‘Cherries Jubilee’ - a rich vanilla and cherry-flavored ice cream with subtle hints of rum. The classic Escoffier recipe was a flambé of kirsch over a pan of tart cherries and caramelized sugar that was created for French royalty in the late 1800s. For our version we wanted to punch up the flavor and texture with almond, saffron and some classic French pastry,” Domingo said, noting the flavors were “brought to life by 80s ice cream nostalgia and the quality of Northwest sweet cherries.”

The second Oregon dish featured on the list is mussels with ‘nduja butter from Heavenly Creatures in Portland.

According to the New York Times, “The bistro-cum-bottle-shop room here belies the aspirations of the food on the plate at this wine bar with fine-dining dreams. The mussels dish that was on the menu in June is a perfect example: Seafood and sausage are common enough platefellows, but the tingle of the ’nduja butter — each shell meticulously topped up with the crimson elixir — accented with the zip of fresh mint and lime, was an unexpected delight.”

In a statement to KOIN 6 News, Heavenly Creatures Chef Aaron Barnett said "As a guy who’s been running French restaurants as long as I have, I’ve always tried to avoid using ingredients that weren’t classically found in French cooking. But at Heavenly Creatures, I’ve been able to work with ingredients that we’ve been excited to explore at the wine bar."

Barnett added, "Ironically, the last time I was in Paris I saw ’Nduja on so many menus because it’s super versatile and I just fell in love with it. My son fell in love with it too - he thought it was the coolest thing, and it is - kind of a spreadable salami, like peanut butter but meat. I messed around with variations of it, brought it into Heavenly Creatures and whipped it up as an 'Nduja Butter to pair with Mussels. It’s a really simple, simple dish, but it was one that had just packed a ton of flavor and was super delicious."

Other dishes on the list include the ham sandwich from Mike’s Famous Ham Place in Detroit, Michigan; fried chicken at Stanley Supper Club in Stanley, Idaho; and burnt honey pie at Grand Opening in San Francisco, California.