Restaurants near Children's Museum, Portland

Let’s start with the good: 1. Beautiful venue inside and out. We dined on the patio which was very comfortable. 2. Food was as expected delicious and perfect in many ways. Arancini perfectly breaded and great texture and flavor. butter lettuce very good (seemed a bit heavy but overall very good). Pork shoulder perfection and pasta dish was a wonderful blend of flavors. Gelato divine. Less good: service was very professional but cold. Never developed a connection with our server. Big issue for us was timing. We ordered cocktails to enjoy before dinner (delicious) but had just gotten them when both our appetizer and salad show up. Pet peeve for us and has led us to sometimes just ordering one thing at a time to avoid being rushed. Bad: Wine corkage. Server wasn’t sure at first if it was $30 or $35. Lost me at $30. We are wine lovers and know what we want so always bring our own. I cringe at $25 and am okay at $20 if well served. Never sure the reasoning but we split a $15 glass of wine instead of opening ours. They could have had $20x$25 profit from opening mine but choose $8 profit on the glass?). in general a nice place but probably won’t be back due to price ($200) and corkage policy. Too many other fine food places that rank higher for me.

We arrived when they opened at 4:00 so it was easy to get a table with a great view. Took my 12 yr old granddaughter for her bday. She was impressed! The service was excellent. Sherry was great. The water guy, Chris, was very friendly and helpful! Food was good but not a lot of choices for my granddaughter who doesn’t like seafood. (Our problem not theirs). She loved the bread! Lol! They gave her a small piece of cake for her bday.

Took my dad for his 84th birthday. He had a hard time deciding what to get - everything sounds delicious. They provided a dairy-free desert option on the house once I told our waiter - who was fantastic- that my dad can’t do dairy. All around a special evening and we will be back.

Great service, very accommodating to our preferences, wonderful food! Love it there!

We were a party of seven and with that group we were requested to enjoy our meal family style. that worked out great. It was a lovely fresh variety of tastes and flavors and a good time was had by all. This group of restaurants-MEC-were highly recommended by a colleague who had moved from New York to Portland two years ago. I am a native of the Seattle area and the other guests were from several parts of the US.