When Kel's fall work trip to Portland, Oregon, coincided with my birthday, I knew exactly where I wanted to celebrate.
We'd recently been watching old seasons of "Top Chef," including Season 12 in Boston, where we first met Chef Gregory Gourdet. His calm confidence, creative cooking, and friendliness stood out. When I learned he'd opened Kann, a Haitian restaurant in Portland, it shot straight to the top of my list.
While Kann was new to me, it'd already been open for three years and had won the 2023 James Beard Foundation Award for Best New Restaurant (in the country). Chef Gourdet also won individual Beard Awards in 2022 for his first cookbook and in 2024 for Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific Region.
After a few days of refreshing the Resy reservation page, I scored a 4:15 p.m. table for two on my birthday. I didn't mind the early dinner time as I enjoy seeing beautiful spaces (and food) in natural light.
That afternoon, Kann more than lived up to my expectations. From the moment we sat down, it felt like a celebration not just of my birthday, but of Gregory Gourdet's career and vision for modern Haitian cuisine.
Later that night, back in our room at the McMenamins Kennedy School, I streamed the inaugural ceremony for North America's 50 Best Restaurants. There was Chef Gourdet, smiling in the audience as Kann was named the 27th best restaurant in North America.
It felt like serendipity that I celebrated at Kann in Portland the same day they celebrated their latest accolade.
Table of Contents
Arriving at Kann
Enough of the back story! Let's move on to the restaurant experience. At 4:15 p.m., we arrived at Kann in Portland's Buckman neighborhood on the east side of the Willamette River for dinner.
A handful of concrete planters with foliage frame an unused door at 548 SE Ash Street, foreshadowing the tropical vibe inside. After checking in at the host stand (538 SE Ash St.), we waited a few minutes on the sidewalk for our table.
The hostess then escorted us through the busy dining room. I was surprised at how many diners were already inside, considering it was a Thursday and they'd only been open 20 minutes.
Interior Design
Kann's dining room unfolds as one open space, grounded in natural earth tones and wood. The light oak chairs and floors complement the brass accents throughout the space.
Overhead, a sweeping cove lined in brushed gold adds an elegant glow, mirrored by the custom gold sheath that runs the length of the open kitchen. We walked past the chef's counter, its quartzite surface showing off blue and pink veins, to a small table tucked just around the corner.
Along the wall between the kitchen and windows, stacks of white oak - the same wood used for Kann's live-fire cooking on its eight-foot hearth - filled floor-to-ceiling shelves.
The table was set with deep indigo plates, their glazed surfaces rippling like ocean currents in ceramic. I was given a matching blue-and-gold envelope with a note from Chef Gourdet and his team, thanking us for celebrating at the restaurant.
In small print at the bottom, it advised me to plant the paper note in my garden and watch it grow. I kept my souvenir from Kann in Portland, and I'm still curious about what will sprout once I bury it in soil.
The Menus
Drinks
I was surprised to see non-alcoholic wines, ciders, and cocktails listed on the first page of the drink menu, as those categories often appear at the end, if at all. The wines were primarily from Seattle and Germany.
A note at the top informs diners of Kann's dedication to sourcing zero-alcohol wines, an effort to treat customers who don't consume alcohol the same as those who do.
Chef Gourdet has been open about his period of addiction and recovery, an aspect of his story that had me rooting for him on Top Chef.
I'm a massive fan of zero-proof cocktails and the growing movement to put as much effort into them at a restaurant as the alcohol-based drinks.
But this was my birthday, and between the two categories, I opted for the buzz of Kann's Jaden Vèt cocktail (gin, elderflower liqueur, celery, green apple, lemon) served with lemon pepper around the rim.
Soon after our gin drink arrived, so too did two glasses of complimentary sparkling, a birthday bonus.
Haitian Food
Given the weeks of anticipation leading to this moment, I'd already scoped out the menu on Kann's website numerous times. I liked that it was concise, with dishes served family-style.
Our server informed us that they'd be transitioning from summer to the new autumn menu the following week. Still, some similarities remain despite the focus on seasonal ingredients.
I'd spent the morning visiting some of Portland's best bakeries for a story, followed by a fantastic Indigenous lunch at Javelina, so I wasn't overly hungry ahead of our early dinner.
Instead of ordering several entrees, which I was afraid might be too much food, we flipped the script and chose multiple starters and a single entree (followed by dessert, of course!).
Starters
The first appetizer I zeroed in on was a summer fruit salad that united Caribbean flavors with Pacific Northwest ingredients.
It was the prettiest dish of the meal, featuring strawberry, blackberry, dragon fruit, pickled cantaloupe, charred pineapple, and avocado. The pièce de résistance was a passion fruit and coconut milk dressing, poured tableside. While refreshing, it also had a spicy kick.
For reference, the fall version of this salad retains the dragon fruit while substituting figs, grapes, and a butternut squash vinaigrette.
Another fresh and spicy starter was the lightly seared hiramasa (yellowtail amberjack). It was served with pickled Champagne mango, mint compressed pear, smoked coconut vinaigrette, and crispy plantain chips.
I loved the plating, with buttery fish slices surrounded by swirls of white and green. It was delivered along with our order of warm sweet potato bread and berbere-spiced butter.
According to Kann's Instagram, this gluten and dairy-free brioche sweet potato bread "has a hint of habanero for subtle heat and depth." It was baked and served as a large cube alongside a bowl of their plant-based, spice-flecked butter ball.
It was almost too pretty to slice open and eat, but once we each got a taste for it, the rest was history. I would order this every single time, and am not surprised to see it has remained on Kann's fall menu.
Additional appetizers included akra, a traditional Haitian street food made from fried root vegetables. Kann's is made using taro root and served with a remoulade. Griyo twice-cooked pork is also available.
Starters were priced from $14 to $26, except for the Wildtype salmon, the world's first cell-cultivated seafood, which goes for $32. Overfishing is a global concern, and I was curious to try it, but not on this occasion.
Mains
Eight larger courses were available from the hearth, including smoked beets with a creamy garlic coconut and jerk cauliflower. We skipped past those vegetarian options and landed on the smoked shrimp curry.
Kel loves shrimp, and I love curry, so it was a fitting compromise. Caribbean curry paste, ripe plantains, and pickled tomatoes were served with the shrimp in a blue bowl, accompanied by a side of rice. It was hearty and, as we had come to expect, spicy.
Larger entrees included:
- Pan-seared striped bass
- Half chicken with jerk-braised leeks
- Creole smoked duck with a spiced glaze
- Pasture-raised pork chop with cherry-ginger sauce
- Kann Coffee-rubbed flat iron steak (American Wagyu)
The prices for main courses ranged from $22 to $69, with the duck at $120 an outlier.
Desserts
Let's flip the page to dessert now. Five mouthwatering options greeted us on the back page of the menu, including a peach tartlette, gateau au beurre (Haitian butter cake), baked Haiti (a play on baked Alaska), chocolate kokiyol (Haitian doughnuts), and a guava, cream cheese, and blueberry sundae.
Based on the meal thus far, I'm confident any of the above would've satisfied my sweet tooth. If we weren't already so full, I would've lobbied for two desserts. As it was, eating one would be a stretch.
Related: Portland's James Beard Award Finalists
To conclude my birthday at Kann in Portland on a sweet note, I ordered the Haitian butter cake with citrus curd, strawberry-koji ice cream, and whipped coconut crème fraîche.
Once again, the presentation was lovely, featuring a layer cake on crème fraîche and a scoop of ice cream held in place by cuts of fresh strawberries. The leafy green garnishes added a pop of extra color.
Desserts were priced at $17, except for the sundae, which was $14.
Coffee
The last menu item I tried before we paid the bill was the Kann Coffee, which I thoroughly enjoyed black.
French colonialists introduced coffee to Haiti (then known as Saint-Domingue) in the early 1700s, with enslaved people cultivating it. By 1788, the region was supplying half the world's supply of the beloved beans.
Wrapping Up
As the night wound down with a cup of Haitian coffee, I couldn't imagine a better way to spend my birthday. Kann restaurant in Portland lived up to every bit of the hype: beautiful food, warm service, and a sense of pride that radiated from the kitchen.
When Chef Gourdet's restaurant was named one of North America's best later that evening, it felt like the perfect ending.
Kel and I paid the bill and exited the restaurant about 90 minutes after we'd been seated. We hadn't felt rushed, nor did we feel a need to linger needlessly.
Parties of four or fewer are allowed an hour and 45 minutes to dine, and seeing their popularity firsthand, I can respect the need for such a policy.
Plan Your Visit
Kann Restaurant
548 SE Ash St., Portland, Oregon
kannrestaurant.com
Dinner only, from 4 p.m. Tuesday to Sunday.
Reservations recommended via Resy.
