Kann, chef Gregory Gourdet’s paean to the Haitian cuisine of his forebears, was named America’s best new restaurant at the James Beard Foundation’s 2023 Awards show Monday at Lyric Opera of Chicago, the first time a Portland restaurant has earned that honor.
In what emerged as a huge night for Portland restaurants, another local chef, Vince Nguyen of Southeast Portland’s Berlu, took home a regional award in the newly redistricted Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific category, besting Thomas Pisha-Duffly of Portland’s Gado Gado, Josh Dorcak of Ashland’s Mäs and chefs from Seattle and Juneau, Alaska.
The awards ceremony, often called the “Oscars of the food world,” took place as the foundation — a lightning rod for criticism since its founding in 1991 — attempts to respond to changes in the greater restaurant industry, making its once-opaque awards process more equitable for a diverse roster of chefs.
“(Change) is happening, just look around you,” said Bay Area chef Tonya Holland, the award committee chair. “When I was on the stage at these awards 21 years ago, I didn’t see many people who looked like me. Now we have a Hawaiian female restaurateur, a Haitian gay male chef, and indigenous female chef, a queer black wine educator, and on and on.”
In a ceremony that stretched on for nearly four hours, included at least four hosts, featured appearances by Chicago’s mayor, Illinois’ governor, sponsor representatives, the head of the local tourism board and even a pre-recorded video of U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken -- during which he listed every ingredient of a dish from a recent state dinner -- Portland’s Nguyen kept his speech blessedly short.
“Thank you to the community of chefs, diners, media in Portland who have supported me from day one, even though I’m from Orange County,” Nguyen joked in remarks that lasted around 40 seconds. “Thank you to my staff, old and present, even if you worked for me for a day, I learned from that experience. And most of all thank you to my wife, who is my support and inspiration.”
Berlu, The Oregonian’s 2019 Rising Star restaurant, spent the pandemic reinventing itself first as a night market, then a bakery, then a Vietnamese tasting menu experience.
In other categories, folding Hawaii into the Northwest region allowed the Beard Awards to move Idaho into a new Mountain district, freeing former Portland chef Kris Komori to win for his work at Boise’s Kin.
“How many of you thought someone from Boise would be up here?” Komori said.
Portlanders also did well in the Beard Foundation’s annual media awards Saturday, when The Oregonian’s own Gosia Wozniacka won an investigative reporting award for previous work with the website Civil Eats, while Eater PDX editor Brooke Jackson-Glidden took home the local voice award and an All The Homies Network episode won in the reality visual media category.
Near the end of a chef ceremony Monday that featured several expected wins — Philadelphia’s Kalaya in the Mid-Atlantic region, Atomix for New York State — Kann, the odds-on favorite to win best new restaurant, appeared to be in strong position to win its categroy. After opening last August, Gourdet’s first solo project after years helming downtown Portland’s Departure has cleaned up with both national and local awards, taking the No. 1 spot on Esquire’s annual restaurant guide and being named The Oregonian’s our own 2022 Restaurant of the Year.
An exterior view is seen at Kann, a Haitian restaurant by Gregory Gourdet in Portland, on Thursday, November 10, 2022.Vickie Connor/The Oregonian
After Kann’s number was called, Gourdet took the stage in a sharp suit with a half dozen principal Kann staffers, pausing to give a quick Haitian Creole lesson, teaching the crowd how to ask “Sak pase?” (“What’s up?”) and answer “N’ap boule” (“It’s burning,” though, ironically, probably closed in meaning to “Chilling”).
Gourdet kicked off his speech with a sigh, and a long lens:
“Whew, where to start?” he asked. “In 1492, Christopher Columbus...”
The audience laughed (it was a good line) but Gourdet’s had picked his starting point in earnest.
“...he landed on Haiti,” Gourdet continued, “and he forever changed the fate of the native Taino people and the fate of the enslaved Africans that came over. For 300 years they were exploited, abused, and used to make Haiti one of the richest colonies in the world, producing almost all of the sugar and coffee that was exported to Europe.
As Gourdet explained, Haiti endured nearly 13 years of revolution before becoming the first world’s Black-led Republic.
“From barbecue to liberation, we have a lot to give to Haiti,” he said.
Gourdet thanked his assembled team, including business partner Tia Vanich, chef de cuisine Varanya Geyoonsawat, general manager Damont Nelson, pastry chef Gabby Borlabi, sous chef Hannah-Ruth Wilson and assistant general managers Erica Namare and Brandon Hightower, as well as his parents, the Beard Foundation and the City of Portland “for allowing us to create something that all the world would want to visit.”
“From the beginning, we always wanted to do things extremely differently, and it hasn’t been easy. we had the grace of the pandemic to allow us to see what we think needed to change in our industry, and we try to stand, we hope to stand as an example that paying people fairly, having diverse and mixed gender teams is not just equitable, but effective.
“Today I stand the son of Haitian immigrants, a son of my ancestors, and the member of a team 45 people deep who are committed to telling the story of Haiti and its contribution to the culinary arts, to American culture and to global culture altogether.”
Want to learn more about Kann? I suggest starting with my 2022 review, “Kann is unlike any restaurant Portland has seen before.” Want to try it for yourself? Here’s my guide to getting into Kann, with or without a reservation.
— Michael Russell; mrussell@oregonian.com
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