Portland’s JinJu Patisserie, Willamette Valley chef win James Beard Awards

The most outstanding bakery in the United States is JinJu Patisserie in Portland. And the best chef in the Northwest and Pacific region is in a small town in the Willamette Valley.

That’s according to the 35th annual James Beard Awards, which happened Monday night.

Timothy Wastell was named Best Chef for the category covering Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington as chef of Antica Terra in Amity.

Wastell’s win means a three-peat victory in the category for Oregon chefs: Gregory Gourdet of kann in Portland won in 2024 and Vince Nguyen of Berlu in Portland won in 2023.

JinJu Patisserie and Wastell were two of the six nominees from Oregon for this year’s awards.

Other nominees included Scotch Lodge in Portland for Outstanding Bar (which lost out to Kumuko in Chicago) and two other chefs in the category with Wastell: Joshua Dorcak of MÄS in Ashland and Ryan Roadhouse of Nodoguro in Portland.

The final Oregon nominee was up for one of the biggest awards of the night: Coquine in Portland for Outstanding Restaurant. That award instead went to Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder, Colorado.

If Coquine had won, it would be a consecutive victory in the category for Portland — Thai restaurant Langbaan was named Outstanding Restaurant last year.

In this year’s James Beard Awards, Oregon had the fourth most nominees by state, after Texas (13), California (12) and New York (12).

Related: After decades of interest and multiple false starts, James Beard Public Market is finally a go

Portland area social media star “The Korean Mama” tasted pastries at JinJu Patisserie back in 2023.

The James Beard Awards honor culinary excellence across the nation and are named after chef and cookbook author James Beard, who was born in Portland in 1903.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.