Here’s one way to measure Portland’s unprecedented hot streak at the James Beard Awards: In the past four years, the city has won nearly as many medals at the so-called “Oscars of the Food World” (eight) as it did in the previous 32 (nine).
Here’s another: Since the initial Beard Awards in 1991, Portland has earned medallions in five national categories. All but one of those came since 2023.
Let’s pause to acknowledge that this is all, well, a little silly. Were the city’s restaurants any less influential in the mid-2000s, when the likes of Pok Pok, Le Pigeon and Beast wrote Portland in permanent ink on the travel itineraries of every major restaurant critic in America? Of course not…