Portland’s Best Restaurants and Bars, Spring 2025 | Eater Portland

"Since 1988, Portlanders have stepped into downtown restaurant Murata for dinners of miso soup, tonkatsu, and broiled mackerel, pots of soothing zosui filled with ribbons of egg, or chirashi sporting generous slices of salmon and scallop. Alongside classic big items like dragon rolls and spider rolls, you’ll also find more unusual items like Osaka-style box-pressed sushi with cured mackerel and a menu of nigiri specials flown in from Japan, including Hokkaido uni and a three-piece bluefin tuna sampler. Murata is old-school in the best way, a style of Japanese restaurant becoming rarer and rarer with time, evidenced by the specials hand-written on a whiteboard, sushi chefs clad in ties and white coats, quiet jazz in the background, and private tatami rooms." - Katherine Chew Hamilton