Imperial

Came here on a Friday night. We made a reservation for two at 8:30pm and weren’t sat until 8:45pm. Waited nearly 20 minutes before our server came over and took our drink order. Waited another 15 minutes for her to take our food order. The food was good. I recommend the cauliflower appetizer. The flat bread came out little too crispy and burnt. The beef short ribs were delicious, but the bread that came with it was dry and flavorless. My friend ordered the flat iron steak which was also very good, but nothing overly special. Overall, the food was worth it, but the poor service made our experience less pleasant.

Absolutely delicious. Everything we ordered was amazing. The cauliflower, duck meatballs, fried chicken all so good. Service was also excellent. Will definitely go back!

The bar staff is so welcoming, fun and good looking! There are to die for craft tap cocktails and the food is mouth watering. Highly recommend for just about any time of day, duck in from shopping or meetings for a quick but lovely drink and snack or a long multi course dinner. And do yourself a favor and get the chocolate malt crème brûlée.

The pork loin was so tender that you could cut it with a butter knife. Doug is very sweet and down to Earth as well as Vitaly. The prices are very reasonable considering the dishes and presentation. The space is small but feels very un-​cramped inside. No complaints at all.

–Food was great. Their pork secreto is to. die. for.– but I hear the menu changes frequently.
–Definitely more on the pricey side. It should be a $$$, not $$… in my opinion. But I would say it’s well worth the money.
–Come with a reservation! I didn’t, and I ended up having to wait for over 30 minutes at 8pm.

Beigneta was pretty darn amazing. Like a powdered sugar donut but chewier, yet less substance. And the honey on top? Divine!
PLEASE skip the pop tart. You won’t regret it. It has the flakiness of a chicken pot pie and while unusually bloated in the middle, has absolutely no real flavor.
Chicken sausage was fairly solid. Nothing to write home about, but not inedible either. I guess you could say it was adequate but easily forgotten.
Cinnamon Toast Crunch — I was really looking forward to this but was somewhat disappointed. The taste was OK but the large chunks of crunchy something-​or-​rathers was off putting, both because I didn’t know what they were and also because it’s the wrong texture I want when eating a chewy cinnamon roll. But the name of the dish did warn me.
Coffee was good lol
3 – 3.5 star performance. I was feeling generous and rounded up because I had 3 cups of coffee which is impressive given how I rarely drink even one.

The food here was average (roasted chicken, mushrooms, potatoes) to slightly above average (carbonara, fried chicken). It wasn’t, however, amazing (as much as I wanted it to be), and because it wasn’t amazing I’ll call it overpriced.
The main issue ultimately was that our waiter was either A: thinking he was better than us/​we weren’t good enough to be there, or, B: having a very bad day.
I’ve never once in my life had a waiter come up to the table and ignore questions about the menu and just stand there with his pad out waiting for our order. I though maybe I was mistaken, this is too weird for a nice, well-​respected restaurant, right? But no! Again, at dessert, our waiter returned to stand there and expect our order. Not ask if we were interested or if we had any questions, just stand there with the expectation.
Also, when it came time to pay and we asked for the check to be split, we were greeted with a nice «…I guess». Dude, come on, it’s not that hard — there was only 4 of us. I hope you weren’t upset when I tipped you 15%, but I assume with your sense of entitlement (as evidenced by your demeanor) that you felt wronged by the 15% you worked so little to receive. I will not be coming back.

SOLID. Alright, so, downtown PDX isn’t exactly the place you wanna hang at night. Unless you just got in from a 15 hr flight and need to drink the pain away/​feed yourself. Hi that’s me! The menu here is delicious. Something for veg & meat eaters. Casual yet cool. I had the roasted cauliflower w oranges and brussels. 100% yes. The man had the kale salad. He never eats green things. A holy moment in relationship history. Cocktails a bit boozy and therefore, great by me. 4 because although its great, I’m not DYING to be a repeat offender. Surprised it was named Restaurant of the Year.

What an unbelievable restaurant! We came across Imperial pretty late in the day (around 4pm) but were able to get a table for 4 (plus baby) for that evening. No wait once we got there.
It is almost difficult to describe just how good the food was. We ordered family style and each dish that was brought was seemingly better than the last. All the reviews said to order the Fried Chicken… and man it does not disappoint. Don’t even look at menu — just order it. Other dishes we had included the carbonara (which I am not a fan of by my wife is and she loved it!), seared ocean trout and the pork secreto. All were just fabulous. An unexpected winner at the table was the pan roasted cauliflower. None of us had seen it done this way before and it was spot on! Hummus and cauliflower… who knew.
Oh and almost forgot… the Parker house rolls. You have to ask (and pay) for the rolls but at only $ 1 they are more than worth it.
I can certainly see why Willamette Week named Imperial Restaurant of the Year for 2015. Well deserved honor.

This was such a wonderful surprise! Everything was just nicely done and flavorful food. We ordered two orders of flat bread, because we couldn’t stop eating it. We had to have two orders. Local pear salad and Cesar salad were so tasty and great flavors. My partner who had mental block about fish sauce but he tried the pear salad and he loved it. Main courses were BBQ beef short rib, fried chicken and flat iron steak. The service was great. We finished with warm chocolate cookies, ice cream and banana icebox cake.

Excellent food, service and experience! Brought a business client here and I kinda rolled the dice because it was my first time as well. My customer loved the food, the atmosphere and the experience.
Went with the Duck Meatballs based on other Unilocal reviews — surprised to find I loved them, I could have ordered an entrée portion if they let me. Fried chicken was so moist the juices ran out when cut. The flat iron steak was cooked perfectly and was delicious.
Wine list was not exceptionally strong but well thought out and fairly priced.
I cannot wait to come back with my husband so he can experience Imperial’s exceptional service and food.

I watch my foodie friends and they all have checked this place out in Portland, so I had to check it out. Well, I did and it’s really a fantastic place for brunch. We went and sat at the bar as who’s going to make a reservation or wait 25 minutes for a table when you can go straight to the bar and get a spicy bloody Mary. Really, wait for a table is lame when it’s just two of you.
The Bloody Mary was kind of unique as they had some homemade looking tomato juice, more of a sauce than juice and laced it with some of that Aardvark hot sauce to make it spicy; unique and pretty tasty too.
Got the 6 oysters for $ 17 and they were really fresh and tasty too. I don’t remember the type of oysters, but they are all Pacific Northwest oysters and creamy and tasty to start off with before the main entrée.
I got the special and it was some fresh cod fish and chips. The cod was really good with the homemade tartar sauce and the fries, well they are just fries; nothing special. The other course I tried a few bites was the fried chicken that came with some biscuits with a mushroom gravy, it was really good too.
There seems to be so much to explore on the menu and at the bar that it can take quite a few visits to really find out what they have to partake.
I’ll have to go back for seconds.

Imperial was a recommendation to me and my friend by a bartender at Veritable Quandry.
We made reservations on the same day for dinner on a Saturday night at 8:30pm.
Not bad, right?
We arrived and waited around 10 min which was fine by me since I wasn’t too hungry yet.
Our server was great, gave us drink suggestions as we were feeling extra indecisive that night.
We also found out the chef, Doug, was on Top Chef, so it was an honor to see him do his take on fried chicken.
Here’s what we ended up doing:
DRINK:
–Trophy for showing up cocktail which was the closest thing to a mule. The drinks were strong!
–My friend got the Hennessy cocktail on tap and that was definitely strong.
FOOD:
–House bread (great crispy roll)
–Duck meatballs: complex spices, a little sweet, almost indian flavors, delicious!
–Mushrooms: All sorts of wild mushrooms, if you’re a mushroom lover, you will eat this up!
–Fried chicken: Interesting and unique take on fried chicken, super moist and crispy, paired with pickles and onions, very southern. This chicken was also served with habanero hot sauce in an eye dropper bottle (10 points for creativity)
Desert:
–Toffee pudding: By this point, i was stuffed. Nothing too special, i enjoyed the bon bon.
*Would definitely come back!*

One of the best meals I have ever had! Mushrooms in bone marrow was like visiting heaven. The carbonara was exceptional. The spedella was the best plate the table ordered. The venison carpaccio made me die a little.
As expected last nights meal was EPIC! We ordered almost everything on the menu. Carbonara with duck yolk and bacon, spedella, ribeye, bacon pork chop (yes you read that right), clams and octopus with chorizo, rabbit rillett, pork terrine, smoked venison carpaccio, mushrooms in bone marrow and a beautiful bottle of Nero D’Avola.

Boy oh boy. I haven’t been this is excited about finding a new place in awhile. It’s strange because I have walked and driven by Imperial a handful of times and never thought twice about it. It was definitely my loss.
Their HH was pretty legit with a variety of offerings like fried chicken, burger, oysters on a half shell, cheese plate, pâté and fries. All the plates ranges between $ 5 – 10 with the oysters 6 for $ 15 or 12 for $ 28. Not bad at all. They had 2 cocktails on HH and a few rotating taps.
The food was on point and the drinks? Well, if I didn’t have to drive home I would’ve had more… they were superb. I’ll definitely be back to have dinner and I heard they had a great brunch. We shall see!
My recommendations? Oysters! They were fresh and delicious. The fried chicken… bomb! If you’re in the area check Imperial out, this just may be my new favorite HH in Portland!

One word… AMAZING
All the food was delicious but there was one food item that knocked my socks off… Their French fries!!! So I’m a French fry addict, I even go as so far as to make a list of my top 5 French fries… Imperial’s French fries knocked out my fav French fries of all time (the back abbey) and made their way into 1^st place. Seriously so f$#king amazing, excuse my French but don’t excuse the French fries from imperial… Give them a shot and get your mind blown!!!

I went here for a work lunch yesterday. The place was pretty busy, but the two of us didn’t have to wait. We were offered seats at the mostly open bar or a small 2-​person table. We chose the table. It ended up being pretty crowded up against the seats behind us. I had a hard time wedging myself into the seat, but once I was there it was fine.
The lunch menu had quite a few delicious sounding items. I went for the fried chicken, one of my favorite dishes. My coworker got the crab omelette and pickle plate. The fried chicken came out in an oval cast iron dish. There were 2 decent sized chicken breasts laid on top of each other with pickles and pickled onions on top. On the side was a small cup of honey and a dropper bottle with their house hot sauce. I was told to pour both on top to best enjoy the flavor combinations.
The chicken was nicely cooked and crispy on the outside. If I were eating the chicken alone without the toppings I would say it was very good but not the best I’ve had before. I prefer more seasoning in the crust. With the combination of toppings it was a unique fried chicken experience which I really enjoyed. The hot sauce wasn’t all that hot so I kept applying more after every few bite. The pickled items on top were a great addition and I ate a little with each bite.
My coworker said the omelet he got was very good and the pickled mushrooms were amazing.
I’m definitely excited to go back for another work lunch in the future. I’d like to try a new item, but could see myself getting that chicken again any day.

It was really the worst restaurant in usa i have ever tried!!!
Too expensive and bad quality.
Drinks are small and too
wife ordered a cocktail (for 10 dollar) and i think it was 2 – 3 oz.
Caesar salad was very bad i did not eat it! Waiter saw i did not eat it but even did not say a sorry!
and burger was so so without any taste!
The Only good thing was fries.

We have brought friends here on several occasions while visiting Portland. Our last visit, we felt that the service definitely deteriorated.
After we sat down, we were greeted by our server who informed us two of the items we wanted on the menu — The Chicken and the Carbonar were out (It was only 7:30pm!) Then she disappeared without taking out drink order.
The food was just okay this time –My husband ordered the steak which came in a tiny portion.
It didn’t help that the two tables adjacent to us were served the chicken and the pasta dishes.
I am hoping that it was just an off night. Not sure we would make it a point to visit during our next trip.

One of the best meals I have had in 2015 by far and also one of the the best bangs for the buck.
I went with a date and they prefer to serve more family style so we had the Salmon, Carbonara, Broccolini and the fries.
–The Fries– super crispy and with a great flavor and a secret sauce. They taste a lot like duck fat fries but, I am not sure if that is what they fry it with
Broccolini– This was good except I was not a big fan of the eggplant purée with it
KIng Salmon– great flavors paired with grilled peaches that gave it a great sweet kick.
Carbonara– WOW! at $ 19 they are not making much money on this item ! Tagliatelle with Bacon, egg yolk, Grana Padano, black pepper and giant shaving of Black truffle. I love Cacio E Pepe but this is like a high end super charged fat kid version of it WOW! It could easily be in the top 10 things I have ever eaten.
I also had a couple cocktails
Bolo Tie– highly recommended mix of bourbon and pineapple with a rosemary aromatic that brings a great flavor with the smell.
1 inch punch– a solid cocktail with Gin and St Germain flavored with beer and tea
overall a great dinner experience with good service and I will come back again to try the crazy menu items