PORTLAND, Ore. (KGW) — A Southeast Portland restaurant and a chef were among those honored by the 2023 James Beard Foundation during an awards ceremony in Chicago on Monday night.
Kann, which opened last year, won the award for Best New Restaurant. The award for Best Chef in the Northwest and the Pacific category went to Vince Nguyen of Southeast Portland’s Berlu.
The James Beard awards are regarded as one of the most prestigious culinary awards, highlighting top restaurants and chefs from across the United States.
Gregory Gourdet — an award-winning cookbook author and the chef and owner of Kann — thanked his team in a post on Instagram on Tuesday.
“Immense, eternal gratitude to all the cooks, servers, bartenders, dishwashers, bussers, runners, the construction team and all the others who work behind the scenes to allow Kann to keep putting our best foot forward,” Gourdet wrote. “Restaurants are not easy. There is much work to do to fix and heal our industry. Every day at Kann we try.”
Click here to view the full list of 2023 James Beard Award winners
At Kann, Gourdet pays tribute to his heritage and culture by combining Haitian cuisine with seasonal foods from the Pacific Northwest. The spot began operating in August 2022 and has since garnered many accolades, including being named as “best restaurant” by a number of food reporters and critics around the Portland metro area and around the country.
Chef Vince Nguyen opened Berlu in the summer of 2019. The restaurant takes a contemporary approach to Vietnamese cuisine and features locally sourced ingredients in its multi-course tasting menu.
Prior to opening Berlu, Nguyen started his career at a two-Micheline star restaurant in Los Angeles before working in other restaurants Portland, San Francisco and around the world.
Nguyen was named as a semi-finalist of the 2022 James Beard Award for Best Chef in the Northwest.
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