In a city known for its many doughnuts, ice cream, and even patisseries, waiting for souffles and semifreddos in a restaurant can seem like an unnecessarily premature and unexciting way to end the night. But diners waving away dessert menus may be ignoring some of the best confections in Portland. Here are 11 full-fledged restaurants that offer some of the most satisfying desserts in the city, featuring a diversity of goods like indulgent chocolate cake, Paris-Best, and profiteroles.
Portland’s 11 Best Restaurants for Dessert
Find the restaurants hiding the city’s top sweet treats, ice creams, and pastries
Rebecca Roland is an editor of the Southern California/Southwest region, who covers the evolving landscape of LA’s food scene.
— Additional reporting by Michelle Lopez and Janey Wong
Portland’s 11 Best Restaurants for Dessert
Find the restaurants hiding the city’s top sweet treats, ice creams, and pastries
Rebecca Roland is an editor of the Southern California/Southwest region, who covers the evolving landscape of LA’s food scene.
In a city known for its many doughnuts, ice cream, and even patisseries, waiting for souffles and semifreddos in a restaurant can seem like an unnecessarily premature and unexciting way to end the night. But diners waving away dessert menus may be ignoring some of the best confections in Portland. Here are 11 full-fledged restaurants that offer some of the most satisfying desserts in the city, featuring a diversity of goods like indulgent chocolate cake, Paris-Best, and profiteroles.
— Additional reporting by Michelle Lopez and Janey Wong
Ban binn at Langbaan
Portland locals have long known that Langbaan is one of the best restaurants in town, even before the James Beard Foundation awarded it the title of Outstanding Restaurant in 2024. Though it’s tempting to fill up on the savory options, make sure to leave room for the rotating desserts at the end of the meal. One of the latest confections in spring 2025 is a ban binn, a palm rice mochi, pandan, rhubarb, and lime leaf. Reservations can be made with Tock.
Thomas Teal
Boccone colce at Papa Haydn
There’s no way to go wrong at Papa Haydn, an old-school Portland institution that’s famed for its extensive pastry case. Among the options is a boccone dolce made with layers of French meringue, whipped cream, and seasonal fruit, drizzled in semi-sweet chocolate. The stacked dessert is a showstopper, and best eaten within four hours of pick-up. The restaurant has several other desserts worth sampling as well like its famed chocolate cake, and the old-school NW location has plenty of room for groups looking to skip straight to dessert. Reservations available through Resy.
Papa Haydn
Chocolate cake at Cafe Olli
Portland’s all-day cafe and pizza spot, Cafe Olli, also serves one of the best chocolate cakes in town. It’s simple but decadent, with double chocolate fudge frosting sandwiched between thick disks of rich chocolate cake. On top, a sprinkling of crystallized chocolate and Maldon salt round out the flavor profile into something that diners can’t resist going back for.
Baked Haiti at Kann
Kann, chef Gregory Gourdet’s acclaimed restaurant, offers a menu of Haitian food made with local produce and ingredients from the Pacific Northwest. The menu features dishes like a local pasture-raised pork chop, crispy okra, and espageti (Haitian spaghetti). But at the end of the meal, it’s all about the Baked Haiti made with coconut sponge cake, bavarian cream, pineapple reduction sauce, charred meringue, and basil. It’s a visual showstopper that somehow tastes even better than it looks — like the rest of the menu, it’s gluten-free, too. Book through Resy.
Kann Restaurant
Paris-Brest at Canard
Delicate choux pastry is piped into a circle — representing a bicycle wheel in the Paris-Brest-Paris race — to create this dessert found at patisseries all over France. At the French-ish bistro Canard, the dessert is a menu staple that’s stuck around for the long haul, getting the occasional refresh with new toppings. Recently, diners have enjoyed it with strawberries, mandarin curd, and milk crumb. Book a table online.
Bill Addison/Eater
Fois gras profiteroles at Le Pigeon
It can be argued that Le Pigeon, a tiny, intimate restaurant almost hidden away on busy Burnside, is one of Portland’s most quintessential restaurants. James Beard-winning chef Gabriel Rucker always finds a way to give traditional French fare a Portland twist, pairing beef bourguignon with Pacific Northwest produce like corn and green beans. The foie gras profiteroles — cream puffs that are sliced and filled with foie gras ice cream — are no exception to this rule; the caramel-drenched puffs are considered one of the city’s most iconic dishes. Book through OpenTable.
Le Pigeon
Sour cherry vareniki at Kachka
A meal at Kachka, an airy, expansive restaurant that manages to be a cross between Portland’s new architecture and a Russian grandmother’s dining room, is a celebration of Slavic food through and through. Although diners can order Russian drinking food and booze like Herring Under a Fur Coat (a Russian seven-layer dip) and horseradish-infused vodka, the dumplings are a perennial favorite. When pan-fried, the sour cherry vareniki taste like little bites of fresh deep-fried cherry pie. Nab a seat through OpenTable.
Kachka
Butterscotch budino at Nostrana
Iconic in its simplicity, the butterscotch budino at Cathy Whims’ lauded Italian restaurant borrows from another female powerhouse chef — Pizzeria Mozza co-owner Nancy Silverton and pastry chef Dahlia Narvaez’s budino which has earned praise for its silky smooth texture and perfect sweet-salty balance. Luckily, Portlanders don’t have to make the trip to Los Angeles to try it. Nostrana recommends pairing with a glass of semi-dry Marsala oro for maximum enjoyment. Book through OpenTable.
John Valls
Flan at Pambiche
Dining at Pambiche always feels like a mini-vacation, thanks to its generous sidewalk seating and colorful interior set to a soundtrack of traditional Cuban music. The extensive dessert menu completes the restaurant’s vacation vibe, featuring cakes made with tropical flavors like guava, pineapple, lime, and more. The flan, however, is a traditional Cuban caramel custard with a silken texture — even considering its simplicity, it’s the star of the dessert menu.
Pambiche
Tarta de queso at Urdaneta
There are several places that serve good cheesecake in Portland, but only one that does it in the style of Spain’s Basque region: Urdaneta. At first, Urdaneta’s version looks like a mistake, with no crust, a deflated center, and a burnt, blackened exterior — but every bite is silky soft, with just the right amount of tartness. Urdaneta’s intimate, cozy setting feels like the right fit for the velvety cake, especially with a glass of rare sherry. Book through Resy.
Urdaneta
Es cendol at Wajan
Cendol, a cold, soupy dessert popular across Southeast Asia, does well to temper the spicy flavors of Wajan’s rendang sapi or udang belado at the end of a meal. Pandan-flavored, worm-shaped jellies float in palm sugar-sweetened coconut milk, ready to be slurped, under a mound of shaved ice. The optional topping of diced jackfruit adds another layer to the dessert’s textural profile.
Wajan
By Asia Alvarez and Brooke Jackson-Glidden
By Michelle DeVona
