Departure Restaurant + Lounge
NA Program Strength is an editorial assessment based on publicly available menu data. See methodology.
525 SW Morrison St, Portland, OR 97204
Departure Restaurant + Lounge is a modernist, pan-Asian restaurant and rooftop lounge on the 15th floor of The Nines hotel in downtown Portland, atop the historic 1908 Meier & Frank building. Opened in 2009 as the flagship of Sage Restaurant Group, it pairs a teak-clad indoor dining room beneath a long skylight with two open-air terraces overlooking Pioneer Courthouse Square, the Willamette River and the Cascades. Its menu spans Asian street-food starters, sushi, dim sum and kushiyaki skewers, and the kitchen was led for roughly a decade by Top Chef finalist and James Beard winner Gregory Gourdet before his departure.
Departure's bar, known for one of the largest sake and shochu lists in Portland, also maintains a dedicated "Zero Proof" section for non-alcoholic guests. House zero-proof cocktails include the Sunburst (calamansi, seven-spice, soda water) and the Mood Ring (jasmine green tea, butterfly pea flower, lemon, lime, soda water), and the lounge stocks non-alcoholic beers including Best Day "Electro Lime" cerveza.
What to order
- Sunburst
- Mood Ring
“From its perch atop the historic Meier & Frank building (now home to the Nines Hotel), Departure has long reigned as king of the downtown rooftop patios.”— Alex Frane, Portland MonthlyPortland Monthly, July 9, 2025 →