Last night, at the Wynn resort in Las Vegas, Nevada, the international awards organization World’s 50 Best Restaurants held an inaugural bash to celebrate its newest list, focusing exclusively on North America. For months before the event, speculation swirled online about which, if any, Portland restaurants would earn a place on the list. The most oft-predicted: chef Gregory Gourdet’s much lauded, James Beard Award–winning Haitian restaurant. That proved to be a smart prediction, as Kann snagged the 27th spot on the list—the only restaurant from Oregon included. 

Kann, the long-anticipated restaurant from Top Chef finalist Gregory Gourdet, is both a tender, thoughtful, personal tribute to the culinary traditions of Haiti and a well-executed and ultimately delicious argument for dairy- and gluten-free dining. “Every generation, one or two places comes along that change the conversation,” our critic Karen Brooks wrote in her review. “Kann clearly joined the club the night it opened.” 

And it has been raking in the praise since. It was our Restaurant of the Year in 2022, and it went on to win Best New Restaurant at the James Beard Awards in 2023; Gourdet won Best Chef: NW and Pacific the following year. Most major outlets placed it on their superlative new restaurant lists, including Bon Appétit, The New York Times, and Eater. 

Without a Michelin presence, Oregon has few opportunities for international restaurant recognition. The state’s top culinary prizes often come from the James Beard Foundation each year, where it reliably performs quite well. In 2025, bakery Jinju Patisserie took home the medal for Outstanding Bakery, and Scotch Lodge and Coquine both made the shortlists in national categories. But the James Beard Awards focus on the chefs and restaurants across the United States, as opposed to worldwide. 

Outside of the Michelin Guide, the 50 Best list is often considered the most prestigious recognition a restaurant can receive on a global scale. Started in 2002 by a British media company, William Reed, the annual ranking has helped make restaurants like Noma into household names. The international list has long prioritized the kind of restaurants one might see on the The Bear, exclusive fine-dining experiences with elaborate dishes. Portland, of course, isn't a city with a large fine-dining scene; with Castagna and Holdfast gone, and Berlu now exclusively a bakery, Portland’s high-end tasting menus are limited to places like Nodoguro, Le Pigeon, Langbaan, and República. 

However, the 50 Best Academy has historically downplayed North American restaurants more generally. For 2025, New York City’s Atomix—which unsurprisingly landed in first place on the North American list—was the only US representative on its worldwide list, while Mexico City nabbed a few spots. 

The full North American list includes 13 restaurants from New York and 12 from California. Canadian restaurants appear 11 times, with two from the Pacific Northwest: Baan Lao in Richmond, BC, and Published on Main in Vancouver. That’s it for regional representation—Washington, Idaho, and Alaska did not have any spots place in the top 50. We’ll see if Cascadia can pull a few more slots in the years ahead.