Event Location
Embassy Suites Portland Downtown in the Multnomah Hotel
319 SW Pine St., Portland, OR

Sunday, April 21, 6:00 P.M.
Members and guests $800

For reservations or more information, please call (503) 221-0480.

Portland, Oregon, holds a very special place in American culinary history, and in our own: it's the town that gave us James Beard. But back in 1903, when our guiding spirit came into the world, Portland was a very different place: a timber town and a true port city, where sailors wandered the streets alongside shipping magnates; where brothels and rough living were the norm; and where food markets proudly displaying magnificent local products—oysters, Dungeness crabs, wild berries and mushrooms, apples, salmon, and much more—were everywhere. "Good food abounded" in this "food-conscious city," Beard wrote in Delights and Prejudices. These days Portland is a sophisticated, grown-up city, but sadly, the markets have all but disappeared. Until now. Portland is ready to launch a brand-new open-air market, named to honor its culinary native son, and we're throwing a Dinner of the Decade to celebrate, with proceeds shared between The James Beard Foundation and the market project that Jim surely would have loved.

The venue for this very special dinner is The Embassy Suites Portland Downtown, a first-class hostelry—opened in 1912 as the Multnomah Hotel—that's been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. And our historic gathering of superstar chefs will be hosted by Richard van Rossum, executive chef at the Embassy Suites. The lineup includes a trio of top Portland gastronomes. Philippe Boulot trained with Joël Robuchon and Alain Senderens in his native France and cooked his way through some of the world's finest hotel kitchens, including Mark's at the Mark Hotel in New York, which Esquire named the Best Restaurant of the Year. At The Heathman in Portland, he's earned a spot in Nation's Restaurant News's Hall of Fame, a DiRoNA, and a slew of other honors, including last year's James Beard Best Chef: Northwest/Hawaii award.

Caprial Pence, a native West Coaster, earned a James Beard Best Chef: Northwest/Hawaii award as executive chef at Fullers in Seattle before she headed to Portland to open Caprial's. She's won widespread acclaim for her eclectic Northwestern fare, and her TV shows have earned her a second James Beard Award nomination. Cory Schreiber is the scion of a legendary Oregon oystering family who began his pro career in the family restaurant, Dan & Louis Oyster Bar. He cooked with Lydia Shire, Gordon Sinclair, and Bradley Ogden, and was top toque at the Cypress Club in San Francisco before heading back to Portland to open Wildwood, where he earned a 1998 James Beard Best Chef: Northwest/Hawaii award for his breathtaking regional fare.

Head due north from Portland and before long, you'll find yourself in Seattle, home to Grunge, Starbucks, and—more to the point here—the multi-talented Thierry Rautureau and Monique Barbeau. Beardies will remember Barbeau from her days in New York, where her credits include The Quilted Giraffe, Le Bernardin, and Chanterelle. In 1992, she moved to Seattle and stepped into Pence's clogs at Fullers. Under her able hands, Fullers earned four Mobil stars and a place on Zagat's list of the country's top restaurants. In recent years, this "reigning queen of Northwestern cookery" (Tom Sietsema, Seattle Post-Intelligencer) has worked as a consultant. From 1987, Rautureau has been the chef/owner of the perennially popular Rover's, where his French-accented Northwest cuisine has won a steady stream of accolades. Food & Wine praised his "great imagination"; Zagat called him "a genius"; and Gourmet included the quietly romantic restaurant on its best of Seattle list.

California has got some pretty remarkable food, too, and to represent it we've recruited Nancy Silverton, co-owner and pastry chef of Campanile. Silverton and her husband, Mark Peel, met at Michael's after both had trained in France. They ran the kitchens at Spago before launching Campanile in 1989. That year, they won Best New Chefs nods from Food & Wine. In 1990, Silverton won a James Beard Award for Best Pastry Chef, and Peel snagged a Best Chef nomination. Last year, Campanile won our San Pellegrino Outstanding Restaurant Award.

James Beard spent his childhood in Portland, but as an adult, he chose to make New York his home, so it's only right that four New Yorkers round out our Dinner of the Decade lineup. Christian "Hitch" Albin, a Swiss native, was sous-chef at Tavern On The Green and chef de cuisine at the Forum of the Twelve Caesars before joining the crew at The Four Seasons back in 1975, serving as chef de cuisine to Seppi Renggli. In 1990, he took over the top job at the city's perennial power dining spot. French native Eric Ripert began his career with an apprenticeship at La Tour d'Argent in Paris. He moved on to Michelin three-star Jamin under the famed Joël Robuchon, then packed his bags for Washington, D.C., where he worked under compatriot Jean-Louis Palladin. In 1991 Ripert signed on at New York's Le Bernardin; three years later, he was executive chef. In no time flat, he had a four-star review from The New York Times, and in 1998, we named him Best Chef: New York.

That's a title Alfred Portale of Gotham Bar and Grill knows a little something about; he won it in 1993. Since then, there's no stopping the man. Portale has written two cookbooks and earned a place on Gourmet's 2001 50 Best Restaurants in America; Gourmet critic Jonathan Gold called Portale "the most influential chef working in New York." Perhaps you wonder where the peripatetic Michael Ginor calls home? Why New York, of course, but there's nowhere too far for this Beard Foundation Angel to go in the service of fine food and drink. This month Ginor, founder of Hudson Valley Foie Gras, also jets off to Singapore, to spread the word.

Todd English may have launched his beloved Olives in Charlestown, Massachusetts, but ever since he opened a branch on Union Square in Manhattan and upscaled La Guardia Airport in a big way with Figs, we New Yorkers consider him one of our own. English's lusty Mediterranean food and mouthwatering cookbooks have won him diehard fans; just try booking a table! In 1994, we named him Best Chef: Northeast; these days, he's spreading the wealth with English-branded restaurants from Vegas to New York and back again.

We're positive James Beard himself would have been very proud of this very special dinner that marks his place in the history of his hometown and helps to do what he did best—draw attention to the bounty of American gastronomy. Book early.