Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
Portland, home to around 1,000 food carts spread across dozens of the city’s signature “pods,” was voted as the best food truck city in America, Food & Wine magazine announced today.
As someone who has spent more than a decade scouring the city for great food carts, I can confirm that Food & Wine’s readers got this one right, even if those “trucks” go by “carts” here in the Rose City.
According to Food & Wine, “no trip to Portland is complete without sampling one of the city’s hundreds of food trucks.”
No argument there, though I don’t necessarily recommend following the magazine’s advice about where to start (Stretch The Noodle is great, but the Third and Fifth Avenue carts downtown have seen better days).
Instead, check out The Oregonian’s detailed breakdowns of the city’s top four pods — Prost, CORE, Hinterland and the just-opened Lil’ America — or visit one of our best new carts honorees from 2022, 2021 or even further back.
The honors comes as Portland celebrates its second annual Food Cart Week, a collaboration between the city’s cart community, Downtown Portland, The Oregonian/OregonLive, and Here Is Oregon. During the promotion, Portlanders are encouraged to eat out at one of the city’s many food carts, then nominate a favorite for a People’s Choice Award at PortlandFoodCartWeek.com.
According to Food & Wine, the results come from thousands of votes submitted primarily last year during the magazine’s first-ever reader’s choice poll “celebrating the best culinary destinations in the U.S. and abroad.” Readers voted based on travel completed during the past three years on categories including restaurants, bars, airports, cruises and more.
In addition to coming in as the No. 1 food cart city in America, Portland was named No. 9 among cities with the best neighborhood restaurants, No. 5 for best airport food and No. 5 for best food city overall.
Read more:
Food & Wine Global Tastemakers 2023
Checking in with the best new food carts of the past 15 years
How Prost Marketplace became Portland’s best food cart pod (again)
With CORE, Portland food carts expand beyond city center
At Hinterland, Portland food carts find their forever home
Meet Lil’ America, Portland’s BIPOC/LGBTQ-focused food cart pod
Portland’s best new food carts of 2022
— Michael Russell; mrussell@oregonian.com
Our journalism needs your support. Please become a subscriber today at OregonLive.com/subscribe
