Kann

The story

Crafted with passion, served with love

Where Haitian Heritage Meets Pacific Northwest Fire

The name Kann means "cane" in Haitian Creole — a word chosen by chef and founder Gregory Gourdet to honor a specific childhood memory: listening for sugar cane vendors pushing wheelbarrows through the streets of Haiti. That kind of precision and personal weight runs through everything at this live-fire restaurant on SE Ash Street in Portland, where Haitian cuisine is cooked with the rigor of a fine dining kitchen and the soul of a family table.

Gourdet's path to Kann is well documented. A native of Queens, he trained at the Culinary Institute of America, became the school's first student to intern with Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and spent nearly seven years rising through the ranks of three of Vongerichten's restaurants. A decade running Portland's Departure Restaurant followed, before he turned his full attention to the project that would become Kann. Planning began in 2018. The concept first appeared publicly on Top Chef All-Stars LA, where the Kann pop-up won the show's "Restaurant Wars" challenge. A two-night sold-out debut in Portland came in August 2020, followed by the Kann Winter Village — a six-course tasting menu served in heated yurts inside a historic SE Portland foundry through the winter of 2020–2021. The permanent restaurant opened in 2022.

Recognition came quickly and has not stopped. Esquire named Kann the number-one best new restaurant in America. The New York Times and Eater placed it among their best new restaurants nationally. The James Beard Foundation awarded it Best New Restaurant in 2023. In 2025, The Oregonian ranked it the best restaurant in Portland, and it appeared at number 27 on the inaugural North America's 50 Best Restaurants list. The wine program earned a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence the same year — a fitting complement to a list built around sparklings, bottles that pair with well-spiced food, Oregon producers, and a deliberate diversity of winemakers.

The Food and the Fire

Barbeque, the restaurant notes, originated in Haiti — and open-fire cooking anchors the menu at Kann. The hearth section of the current spring menu shows the range: coffee-rubbed carrots with carrot purée and spiced cashew; head-on prawns with pineapple and African pepper sauce; steelhead with epis marinade and pepper confit; a smoked beef rib with Haitian coffee rub, grilled mushrooms, and ti malice. Starters include akra (crispy taro root fritters), griyò twice-cooked pork with bannann peze and pikliz, and hiramasa with passionfruit and coconut snow. Additions like diri ak sos pwa (jasmine rice with red kidney bean sauce) and peanut creamed greens with collards and coconut cream ground the meal in traditional Caribbean pantry staples.

Desserts — among them Baked Haiti, a coconut sponge cake with Haitian-spiced pineapple and charred meringue, and a passionfruit chiboust with rum ice cream — carry the same balance of tropical brightness and technical care. The cocktail program is equally considered, with both full-proof and zero-proof options drawing on Caribbean spices, local fruit, and Haitian rhum agricole.

The Team

Chef de Cuisine Erika Claassen, who joined in 2025, brings over twelve years of kitchen leadership experience. General Manager Elishca Charles, who grew up visiting family in Haiti and later worked as a sommelier at Domaine Serene Winery, leads the front of house. The broader team reflects a shared commitment to what the restaurant describes as sustainability "from sourcing and environmental impact to team quality of life" — and to serving Haitian and Caribbean cuisine with passion and without apology.

Gourdet's James Beard Award-winning cookbook, Everyone's Table, extended the restaurant's reach nationally. The restaurant itself remains the clearest expression of his cooking: seasonal, bold, rooted in a specific heritage, and entirely its own.