We've been telling you all along, but now it's official: the Portland renaissance is underway. At the 2023 James Beard Awards ceremony in Chicago from June 3-5, Portland took home more honors than any competing city, winning a whopping seven of the three dozen awards for its efforts in restaurants, leadership, and media. We made our predictions throughout the awards process—find out which of them came true.

Chef & Restaurant Awards

Best New Restaurant: Kann

Kann reservations just got a lot tougher to snag. Local foodies have been onto Gregory Gourdet’s masterful cooking for years, and the country got a taste of his culinary vision through appearances on Top Chef and with his cookbook, Everyone’s Table. Now Kann, the modern Haitian restaurant that won Portland Monthly’s restaurant of the year in 2022, is getting more of the recognition it deserves on the national stage.

Best Chef Northwest: Vincent Nguyen, Berlu

After stepping away from French cuisine, Nguyen, PoMo’s 2022 Chef of the Year, took home the award for his rebellious take on Vietnamese food. The Beard judges agree: his tasting menu takes you on a journey through the likes of dairy-free ice creams, sweet charred onion cake, durian custard, and shiitake tea. 

Leadership Awards

Emerging Leadership: The Burgerville Workers Union

The first fast-food union in the country formed right here at five locations of the Portland-born chain. In 2021, the union negotiated a contract that provided wage increases, paid vacation time, in-store tipping at all unionized locations, and an end to at-will employment. 

Media Awards

Vegetable-Focused Cooking: The Vegan Chinese Kitchen: Recipes and Modern Stories from a Thousand-Year-Old Tradition: A Cookbook, Hannah Che (Clarkson Potter)

Local chef Hannah Che, who also runs the vegan pop-up Surong, took home an award for her beautiful cookbook, which includes nuggets about the history of vegan eating throughout China, her own family stories, and a comprehensive introduction to many Chinese plant-based ingredients. 

Audio Programming: Copper & Heat, “Abalone: The Cost of Consumption”

Portlanders and ex-chefs Ricardo and Katy Osuna explore the unspoken rules, traditions, and ingredients of restaurant kitchens in their excellent podcast. 

Reality or Competition Visual Media: Restaurant Takeover ft. Matta

This YouTube video by All the Homies Network won for its beautifully produced glimpses of Richard and Sophia Le of Matta as they go through the whirlwind prep process for a single night pop-up at the Multnomah Whiskey Library. 

Jonathan Gold Local Voice Award: Brooke Jackson-Glidden, Eater PDX

Jackson-Glidden snagged the award for a trio of pieces—a personal essay about coffee shop Either/Or as a queer space, a deep dive into a Somali food cart’s Ramadan offerings, and a reported piece about the efforts to stock naloxone and fentanyl test strips at Portland bars that we wish we wrote ourselves, titled "Why Isn't There an Overdose Kit Stocked Behind Every Bar in Portland?"