Roundup: Bests and Awards of 2022

Excited for all the winners!

It’s that time of year again: the time when local media outlets (and nationwide ones, too, but that’s not the focus here) gather their bests and make lists of various things—including food. Personally, I love lists and it’s fun to see what the different food media sources deem “the best” in any given year. It’s unclear in my mind if I’m going to do that kind of roundup before the close of 2022, so I thought I’d round up what’s out there already.

The Oregonian

Here are Portland’s 25 best new restaurants for 2022. This is essentially the first part of the list from O’s main food critic, Michael Russell, who spent a couple of months eating at more than 70 new restaurants in Portland. This is a lis of his favorite 25 and in later this month he’ll publish his top 10.

Places I’ve written about here on the blog: Bar Cala, Gabbiano’s, Kann, La Fondita and the world of República, Piccone’s Corner, Rangoon Bistro, Wu-Rons.

Eater

The 2022 Eater Awards (Portland). Each year Eater puts together their awards for “new talent” as well as outstanding restaurants, bars, and food carts. It’s not a long list, so here you go:

Best New Restaurant: Kann
Best New Counter Service: Rangoon Bistro
Best New Bakery: Cafe Olli
Best New Food Cart: Reeva
Best New Bar: Heavenly Creatures
Best New Comeback: Akadi

Kann and Reeva have appeared on this blog; I ate at Akadi when it was at its old location but look forward to checking them out at the new location. Frankly, all six of these places sound excellent and I’ll make a point to eat at them (hopefully even Kann, what with it’s popularity) in 2023.

Bill Oakley

2022 Portland Steamie Awards. I love reading Bill Oakley’s Instagram, and his expertise with snacks and fast food is continually fascinating to me and, frankly, unparallelled. There are a lot of things on this list that I’d like to try, especially the Jalapeno Pupusa from Chepe’s Pupuseria y Taqueria; the Homer Simpson Sandwich from DeMarco’s; the Braised Beef Potato Taquito from Tito’s Taquito; and that Coconut and Key Lime Cinnamon Bun from Kinnamon’s.

Bill will be featuring all sorts of Steamie Awards-related content on his Instagram this week, so don’t miss it. You can also join his Steamed Hams Society as well.

Portland Monthly

Best Restaurants 2022. PoMo breaks up their end of year offerings into multiple articles but they have a tag: Best Restaurants 2022 and that links them all. Their best restaurant this year is Kann; there’s articles on where their writers like to eat; a dream meal; and some restaurants get their own feature. It’s a really nice mix.

I’ll update this post with more “end of year” lists and articles I come across.