Sausage Parties and Meat Ups: Portland's Best Steaks, Chops and Charcuterie

RingSide Steakhouse

2165 W Burnside St., 503-223-1513, ringsidesteakhouse.com.

RingSide is a multigenerational family shrine to wine and beef, a place where opulent marbling is a quality of the meat and not the countertop. There are occasional adventurous specials—a steak dish with chicharrón and watermelon comes to mind—but this is Portland's most classic baked-potato-side steakhouse, complete with a meat museum in the form of the pristine dry-curing room that is the envy of every other restaurant in Portland. RingSide's early and late happy hours, in the darkest bar ever invented, are legend—and include $4.75 steak bites.

El Gaucho

319 SW Broadway, 503-227-8794, elgaucho.com.

Dim, sepia-toned steakhouse El Gaucho remains a stirringly foreign experience below the Benson Hotel—a place where meticulously coiffed and tuxedo-vested servers make tableside Caesar salad ($14) for elegant arts patrons and West Hills scions with Kardashian hair. Flamenco plays nightly (including Beatles medleys), and a brigade of cooks sears aged steaks to perfection in a kitchen lit like a theater. For the big spender, a $74 filet mignon and lobster surf and turf is available topped with a note-perfect béarnaise. But the plebs can get that same beautiful sauce on Angus steak frites during happy hour for $18.

Old Salt Marketplace

5027 NE 42nd Ave., 971-255-0167, oldsaltpdx.com.

With its open timbers and roaring hearth fire, Cully butcher and sandwich shop Old Salt Marketplace hardly needs to advertise its devotion to old-school sourcing and nose-to-tail cooking. If any doubt remains after ogling the charcuterie in the deli case, enter through the supper-house curtains after 5 pm to enjoy meltingly tender roasted meats alongside an imaginative cocktail menu employing house-infused liquors. If you can't choose a single protein, go for the "let us cook for you" option—a meat-and-seafood omakase starting at $30 per person.

Grain & Gristle

1473 NE Prescott St., 503-288-4740, grainandgristle.com.

Old Salt might be the newish tent pole of Ben Meyer and Alex Ganum's meat empire, but this wood-grained gastropub is the Alberta neighborhood's old reliable, tucked away on Prescott Street. You can rarely go wrong with the daily twofer, which gets you a two-person entree and a pair of 12-ounce beers for $25. Otherwise, the lamb ($14)—slow-cooked, shredded and topped with spiced yogurt and chickpeas—should get the job done.

The 2016 Restaurant Guide

Welcome to the 2016 Restaurant Guide

Paiche Is Our 2016 Restaurant of the Year

The 50 Best Restaurants in Portland | How We Ranked Them

Hat Yai Is the 2016 Pop-In of the Year | Mae Is the 2016 Pop-Up of the Year

Poke Mon Is the 2016 Pop-In of the Year Runner-Up | JolieLaide Is the 2016 Pop-Up of the Year Runner-Up

Portland's 10 Best Pop-Ups and Supper Clubs | Our 10 Favorite Counter Service Restaurants

Willamette Week