Portland eatery named best new restaurant at 2023 James Beard Awards

PORTLAND, Ore. (KPTV) - The 2023 James Beard Award for best new restaurant was just given to Kann in southeast Portland.

Kann is the first Portland restaurant to win this award at the ceremony, which is essentially the “Oscars of the food world.” In fact, they’re only the second Portland restaurant to win a national James Beard Award.

Kann is led by Chef Gregory Gourdet. It’s an ode to his Haitian heritage.

Gourdet is very well known in Portland. He spent years at Departure and received national attention for competing on two different season of Bravo’s hit TV show, Top Chef.

FOX 12 spoke with Gourdet about the inspiration behind the restaurant back in 2021, when he first opened Kann as a COVID-friendly pop-up.

“After spending so many years of my career learning about different cultures, working in Asian-inspired restaurants and, you know, I worked in Spanish restaurants and I’ve worked in so many different types of cultured restaurants. I’ve always loved global flavors. I realized I wasn’t spending enough time learning about my own culture because while my entire family is Haitian and my entire heritage is Haitian,” Gourdet said. “I was born in America. I’ve lived a very American life and I just wanted to dig in. I started going back to Haiti a few years ago and I started making Haitian food with my mom.”

This is Gourdet’s second year in a row winning a James Beard Award. He took one home last year for his cookbook, “Everyone’s Table: Global Recipes for Modern Health.”

Portland notched another win at Monday night’s ceremony. Vince Nguyen of Berlu Bakery on Southeast Belmont took home the Regional Award for Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific.

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