While nothing tops the quality of food when it comes to dining out, readers in the Business Journal's fourth annual poll of their most popular restaurants consistently pick service and hospitality as one of the top three factors in their choice of a place to eat.
This year, atmosphere and ambience barely edged out service as the second-most important factor among the 10 from which readers chose. But for the 80-plus Portland-area restaurants nominated as favorites, readers cited service and hospitality for their selection of 76.8 percent of the cases.
And 32 of those restaurants received a perfect score for service with every voter citing it as a primary factor. So, rather than displaying all 32 restaurants with no way to rank them, I've indexed each restaurant's service score against the total number of votes it received from readers to show the share of total service accolades each received.
On average, 91.9 percent of readers selected service as a factor among the top 10 restaurants in the slideshow above, though only two received a perfect score on service.
As a whole, the top 10 could all be classified as fine dining establishments, though their cuisine and location varies. Two are in Northwest Portland; two are on East Burnside, two are in Southeast; two are downtown; one is on West Burnside and one is in Northwest.
They include a couple of steakhouses, a Spanish tapas spot, a Middle Eastern place, a French cafe and an Asian fusion restaurant, among others. A few of them are led by nationally renowned and locally prolific chefs, including Gregory Gourdet, Cathy Whims, Gabriel Rucker and Greg and Gaby Denton.
This feature kicks off a detailed look at Portland restaurants that'll appear in a series of stories this week. Check back to learn which places offer the best value, which places offer the best spot for a business lunch and, on Thursday, Portland's 25 favorite restaurants, as chosen by PBJ readers.
The Portland Business Journal is a news partner with KGW.