Here Are the Portland Nominees for the 2019 James Beard Awards

The James Beard Foundation announced its 2019 award nominees this morning, and yet again, Portland was supremely snubbed in the national categories.

The award voters chose to leave behind Portland-based semifinalists for Outstanding Chef (Gabriel Rucker), Best New Restaurant (Canard), Outstanding Baker (Kim Boyce of Bakeshop), Outstanding Bar Program (Expatriate), Outstanding Wine Service (Davenport), and Outstanding Restaurateur (Earl Ninsom of Paadee and Langbaan).

In the Best Chef: Northwest category, Portland chefs were obviously better represented: Katy Millard of high-end neighborhood restaurant Coquine received her third nomination for the award, while Justin Woodward of fine dining destination Castagna just earned his fifth. Peter Cho, the chef behind Korean restaurant Han Oak, received his first nomination for the category, as well.

Outside of the world of service, the formerly Portland-based podcast Racist Sandwich received a nomination for best podcast. Racist Sandwich began in Portland in 2016, but its main hosts have left Oregon — Soleil Ho is now a restaurant critic at the San Francisco Chronicle, and Zahir Janmohamed is pursuing a master’s in fiction at the University of Michigan. Also, The Ringer’s Danny Chau won a nomination for his piece on Portland, ‘A Portland Food Diary,’ for the Dining and Travel writing category.

On May 6, chefs, bartenders, and food industry professionals will descend upon Chicago for the “Oscars of the food world,” the James Beard Awards. Last month, the foundation — named for a famous Oregonian food mind — announced its list of semi-finalists; the people and restaurants announced today are the five-ish finalists for the awards. Media award winners will be announced April 26 in New York City.

Best Chef: Northwest Nominees

Peter Cho
Han Oak
Portland, OR

Katy Millard
Coquine
Portland, OR

Brady Williams
Canlis
Seattle

Justin Woodward
Castagna
Portland, OR

Rachel Yang and Seif Chirchi
Joule
Seattle

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the number of nominations Justin Woodward has received. He’s received five, not seven.