Hungry Traveller

Why the top US restaurant is hidden behind a Thai street food cafe

The James Beard Award winner only has 24 seats.

Hungry Traveller

In the kitchen at Langbaan.

By Amy Cooper

Updated April 17 2025 - 4:54pm, first published 3:00pm

America's top restaurant is surprisingly tricky to find. You could stroll along the leafy suburb in north-west Portland, Oregon, seeing only Langbaan's colourful sister, Phuket Cafe, fronting their shared space.

While Langbaan feels secret, the Thai tasting menu restaurant has been anything but since winning the coveted Outstanding Restaurant in the 2024 James Beard Awards. It's the category's first for a Thai restaurant, the first for Portland - birthplace of Beard himself - and the most prized of numerous accolades for chef-owner Akkapong "Earl" Ninsom, a Bangkok-born Portland resident who's been redefining Thai-American food since 2008.

Langbaan means "back of the house" and behind Phuket Cafe's neon-splashed bustle, diners gather in booths beneath chunky timber beams. Those 24 seats are often booked out months ahead, but the mood is cosy and come-as-you-are. Ninsom's known for his unpretentious approach. He's all flavour, no fuss, and that's how freewheeling foodie Portland rolls, too.

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At a chef's counter seat by the open kitchen, I'm up close to the heat from the flaming charcoal grill and the chefs' precise choreography of pounding, searing, stirring, plating, never missing a beat. They wear baseball caps, bandanas and cool butchers' aprons. No starchy whites here.

A dish at Longbaan.

Tonight's theme for Langbaan's five-course tasting menu is "street food", an understatement for the sensory pile-on of exquisitely calibrated dishes, each riffing on Thailand's complex flavour spectrum while showcasing Oregon's local bounty.

Miang Som, an opening fanfare disguised as a humble snack, bundles prawn, Valencia orange, peanut and coconut in a glossy betel leaf - a perfect bite of sweet, sour, juicy crunch with a lick of lingering heat. The Tom Gati Sai Bua soup is celestial; creamy, pungent coconut broth enveloping succulent steamed sole and lotus root. Smoky from the grill, conger eel in aromatic red curry sings with earthy turmeric and sweet apple.

And then dessert - a plump dome of mango mousse filled with sticky rice pudding, garnished with toasted sesame and a zap of lime zest. The chefs assemble them in glossy orange ranks, like cheery villains building secret weapons.

As I leave, still coasting on waves of flavour and fun, I spot the James Beard award on the wall, where the kitchen and dining room converge. The endorsement almost feels superfluous. There's endless evidence of Langbaan's excellence in every bite.