Portland food is changing as fast as the city itself. Fresh thinkers and young chefs are ditching Stumptown staples—pork gutbombs, wood-fired DIY, the shabbiest of chic—for global flavors, lighter dishes, and vivacious, polished rooms. No single “restaurant of the year” captured 2016. So, for the first time ever, we didn’t name one.

Why not? Why did we roll the dice on two brand-new rising stars, Tusk and Revelry? And how did we select the 10 other spots on our 2016 list? On this episode of The Long Play, editor in chief Zach Dundas sits down with restaurant critic Karen Brooks, senior editor Kelly Clarke, and associate editor Benjamin Tepler to discuss the wild calculus, gut feelings, and flukiness of timing behind the making of our Best Restaurants issue.

Download the Long Play on iTunes.

Audio production by Samala Coffey