Seven Places to Experience Portland at Peak Oyster

November is the month oysters bloom.

You don't have to follow the old only-eat-in-months-with-an-R rule anymore—oyster farms have taken care of that—but bivalves are still best in the cold months, when the wild harvests mature. They're also best, we submit, on the West Coast. Ours are bigger, sweeter and flat-out prettier than the crop in even pre-oil-spill New Orleans.

We took a snapshot of Portland at peak oyster, visiting only places where you can walk in and order at least three different types of oyster from a bar, drink a shot and walk out with the devil on your mind. Fancy sit-down restaurants with one or two varietals need not apply. Tablecloths need not apply. Shooters are accepted wherever offered. Cocktail sauce is given the side-eye.

All-around winner:

B&T Oyster Bar

3113 SE Division St., 236-0205, btoysterbar.com.

B&T Oyster Bar (formerly Block + Tackle, formerly Wafu) acts as a busy front for chef Trent Pierce's backroom prix-fixe fish church, Roe, our 2013 Restaurant of the Year. But B&T also shows Pierce's roots as a second-generation fishhouse owner, with either some serious sourcing connections or a great eye for oysters on display. Each oyster, without fail, was a pillowy work of art, shucked both shell- and grit-free and accompanied by a full-flavored, surprisingly peppery mignonette and a mild Thai chili sauce. Both were pleasant accents, and both were unnecessary—the equivalent of a great chimichurri on an already excellent steak.

Selection: The biggest list in town. On our visit, there were Pacific, Netarts, Torkes, Sea Cow, Hama Hama, Shigoku, Medicine Creek and Kumamoto, each fully described on the menu with tasting notes like "copper" or "watermelon."

Bonus oysterage: The $3 shooters are acidic, citric treats made with tomato juice and fish sauce, and they are delightful. Also, there are grilled oysters with multiple seasonings such as miso with sake.

Prices: Oysters are $3 to $3.75 each, but $2 at happy hour (5-7 pm daily, after 9 pm Tuesday-Thursday, after 10 pm weekends).

Best delivery method:

Trifecta

726 SE 6th Ave., 841-6675, trifectapdx.com.

Despite its red walls, open kitchen and fashion-forward cocktail menu replete with sherries and amaros, Trifecta might as well be a Chesapeake Bay spot, doing equal time among various renditions of oyster, wedge salad and big-ass steak. The half-shell oysters come only in half-dozens, however, and the oysters were a bit thin and uneven on our visit, as if a crop of the farm runts. The classic mignonette is the best of its kind we've had in Portland, rich and flavorful and balanced among pepper and shallot—neither cidery nor overdry. But the real way to eat oysters here is the four-oyster, half-shell addition to honeyed ham rolls, the way the fishermen of Maine do it before a hard day on an ocean that might kill them.

Selection: Gold Creek, Torkes, Reach Island.

Bonus oysterage: A slider on brioche with cabbage or a full baked-oyster plate with pork sausage and lemongrass.

Prices: Oysters are $16 by the half-dozen or $19 for four with ham, honey and buns.

Meatiest shells:

The Woodsman Tavern

4537 SE Division St., 971-373-8264, woodsmantavern.com.

Duane Sorenson's wood-grained cocktail bar always has an iced stack of oysters atop it—especially on all-night oyster-hour Mondays. Sorenson was holding court over customers and bar staff on our own Monday visit, and each oyster was extraordinarily generous—with Netarts as meaty as we've seen, the usually dainty Shigokus substantive for their kind but still sweet as artisan candies, and Hove Coves a voluminous cloud of sweet softness, perfectly shucked. But it's too bad about the mignonette: It was dry enough to be almost metallic.

Selection: Netarts, Shigoku, Hove Cove, Blue Pool, Torkes.

Bonus oysterage: If you want to overload on umami, you can get bone marrow with smoked oyster ravigote on top. Holy shit.

Prices: Oysters are $3.25 each, $36 a dozen, with price cuts to $2 on two selections from 5 to 7 pm and all night Monday.

Most classic:

Dan & Louis Oyster Bar

208 SW Ankeny St., 227-5906, danandlouis.com.

Old Town's Dan & Louis is Portland's most hallowed oyster tradition—and perhaps the only one that matters, still owned by the fifth generation of 1907 founder Louis Wachsmuth's family. The English-bar-style space is cavernous, but if you hit up the bar at the Ankeny Alley entrance, you 'll catch a Blazers game on TV and a bartender who's been at her trade for 40 years and is extraordinarily enthusiastic about all things oyster and meat, especially barbecue. The oyster selection is deep, but can go all over the map—literally—with East Coast oysters like briny Virginica making their way onto the menu alongside sweet Sea Cows that are their own tiny piece of heaven, and Netarts of variable generosity. The shells arrive, sadly, with only cocktail sauce, lemon and horseradish.

Selection: Blue Pool, Torkes, Virginica, Netarts, Willapa Bay, Sea Cow.

Bonus oysterage: Oyster po'boy? Oyster stew? Baked oyster, grilled oyster, fried oyster? Check, check, check, check and check.

Prices: Oysters are $3 to $3.75, $18 a half-dozen, and $35 a dozen, with a $24 selected-oyster dozen at happy hour (4-6 pm and all day Monday and Tuesday).

Best innovation in mignonette:

Whey Bar

2225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 284-3366, oxpdx.com.

Whey Bar is best known as Argentine steakhouse Ox's waiting room, but this brick-boxed chamber echoing LCD Soundsystem at high volume contains beautiful attention to oysters. The sweet and lovely grit-free selections on a three-deep menu include the ubiquitous, expected Netarts and Shigoku. Along with a Thai chili ponzu and horseradish cocktail sauce, the oysters were offered up with a little dish of dill mignonette. It turns out this is an almost perfect solution to the sweetness and brine of oysters—an accent that brings out their best qualities while softening their angularity.

Selection: Netarts, Shigoku, Tom's Cove.

Bonus oysterage: None.

Prices: Oysters are $3 to $3.75.

Best free-for-all:

EaT: An Oyster Bar

3808 N Williams Ave., No. 122, 281-1222, eatoysterbar.com.

New Orleans-style EaT was not necessarily the best spot for execution—a couple of the oysters showed crunching evidence of hasty knife work—but in terms of overall dedication to the oyster in all its forms, in an environment that feels like you stepped into an upscale dock-town bar, EaT is perfect. On our visit, there were $10 twofold sherry-oyster pairings for Sherry Week, which showed a briny Pearl Point a lovely complement to Valdespino Inocente Fino. A Petite oyster was a perfect, meaty burst of flavor, and a Sweet was delicate and cloudlike. Prices on a dozen are as low as anywhere, a selection of five $3.50 shooters are all alcoholic and have chili-infused heat that lingers, baked oysters may arrive with a touch of absinthe flavor, and the oyster po'boy sports comeback sauce that tickles the palate with pickling.

Selection: Pearl Point, Yearling, Petite, Sweet, Netarts.

Bonus oysterage: It's all in the bonus.

Prices: Oysters are $3 to $3.50, $16 a half dozen, and $29 a dozen, with $2 select oysters from 5 to 7 pm and all day Tuesday.

Best deal:

Little Bird Bistro

219 SW 6th Ave., 688-5952, littlebirdbistro.com.

This downtown French bistro has become an amazing bar hangout since chef Gabe Rucker decided to split time with his Le Pigeon restaurant and weirded up Little Bird's menu with corn-dog charcuterie and fried-chicken coq au vin. The happy-hour menu offers some of the best food deals in Portland, with an immense two-patty brie burger and rum-cognac-Averna or pisco-pamplemousse cocktails. The oysters are lovingly prepared and already sweet by themselves, but a fig mignonette that's as chewy as the oysters makes them into a confection. Horseradish, likewise, is softened with creme. All is candied and soft here.

Selection: This was the only exception to our three-oyster rule. Little Bird had Sea Cow and Medicine Creek only.

Bonus oysterage: Do oyster mushrooms count?

Prices: $1.50 oysters! Twice a day! Every day! (2:30-5 pm and 10 pm-close.) They're $3 otherwise.

While compiling this list, we also visited Jake's Famous Crawfish, RingSide Fish House and Bar Avignon.

Willamette Week