The James Beard Foundation has nominated Portland Monthly for a media award in the category of Food Coverage in a General Interest Publication. The foundation, named for the Portland-born chef and culinary personality, announced the nominees today across its Book, Broadcast, and Journalism categories.

The category looks beyond restaurant reviews and the standard dine section to encompass other ways the culinary world shows up in an outlet’s coverage, as with former food and drink editor Alex Frane’s news story about the effects of increased ICE enforcement activity in the Willamette Valley winemaking community; freelancer Britany Robinson’s profile of a seaweed farmer and marine education on the Oregon Coast, which was edited by staffer Rebecca Jacobson; an eater's argument for the suburb of Beaverton; and a historical look at the iconic restaurants that have shaped the past 25 years of Portland's restaurant culture.

The magazine’s food coverage has been anchored by past James Beard laureates. Brooke Jackson-Glidden, Portland Monthly’s editor in chief from June 2024 until she and Frane were laid off last month, won the Jonathan Gold Local Voice Award in 2023. Karen Brooks, who wrote for Willamette Week and The Oregonian before joining Portland Monthly in 2010, won the James Beard Foundation’s Craig Claiborne Distinguished Criticism Award in 2017. Critic at large Jordan Michelman won a journalism award in 2020 in the Wine, Spirits, and Other Beverages category for an article on mineral water in Punch magazine. Senior associate editor Matthew Trueherz and art director Michael Novak are also key contributors to the magazine’s food coverage across sections and platforms.

The other nominees in the Food Coverage in a General Interest Publication category are High Country News with The Food & Environment Reporting Network and Roads & Kingdoms, an Anthony Bourdain–affiliated online outlet based in New York City and Spain that began life as a Tumblr in 2011. 

Winners will be announced at a ceremony at the Art Institute of Chicago on Saturday, June 13, two nights before the James Beard Foundation Restaurant and Chef Awards ceremony at Chicago’s Lyric Opera. Local nominees in those categories include cocktail lounge Scotch Lodge and Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific hopefuls Ryan Roadhouse and Thomas Pisha-Duffly.