Skip to main contentThe 35th annual James Beard Award nominees are out.
In the last year before the namesake marketplace honoring the city’s most famous culinary son is set to open this fall, three establishments and a local chef represent Portland alongside the country’s best kitchens, bars and chefs.
The French restaurant Coquine competes for Outstanding Restaurant, Scotch Lodge is up for Outstanding Bar, and the Boise neighborhood’s Jinju Patisserie vies for Outstanding Bakery again following last year’s nomination. Ryan Roadhouse, co-owner of the exclusive Japanese restaurant Nodoguro—which itself is the nominee closest to the future James Beard Public Market—faces off for another year against two other Oregonians (Joshua Dorcak of Ashland’s MÄS, and Timothy Wastell of Amity’s Antica Terra) for the title of Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific.
WW readers should find these names familiar. Our critics have regularly lauded Coquine’s menu and Scotch Lodge’s refined yet welcoming atmosphere since they first opened, while readers named Jinju Patisserie among the city’s best bakeries in last year’s Best of Portland Readers’ Poll. Nodoguro was also regularly shown love prior to its pandemic-era closure and shift to pop-ups before reopening for full-time service.
“We were so grateful to even be in the conversation but to be on this list today has left us all speechless,” Scotch Lodge, which was nominated for its first JBA, shared through its Instagram account. “We are all incredibly proud of our tight-knit team of talented professionals.”
City rep Shannon Jones Isadore, one of the public market’s more prominent political allies, led a coalition Feb. 12 testifying in favor of a bill to allocate $10 million for the market.
“We all know that downtown Portland has struggled, but if I have learned one thing in my career thus far, it is that recovery is possible, and this market is exactly the kind of bold investment we need to bring life back to the heart of our city,” Isadore said during testimony.
The award winners will be announced Monday, June 16, in Chicago.