Ketsuda ‘Nan’ Chaison Is Portland’s Most Prolific Restaurateur You Don’t Know Yet

At Norah’s bamboo-lined dining room on SE Belmont, diners sip coconut Negronis and dig spoons into pad thai brimming with tofu and soy curls. They share larb croquettes, picking them up by their Persian cucumber platforms, while others crack into massaman curry–stuffed masa samosas. Though Thai dishes and flavors make up the bulk of its menu, calling Norah a Thai restaurant would be an oversimplification. It is entirely vegan, though that classification would also diminish its culinary chops.

Upbeat, lively, and largely indefinable, Norah is a reflection of cofounder Ketsuda “Nan” Chaison. Portland’s Thai food geeks may recognize her from the colorful Kati, a similarly meat-evasive Thai spot on Division with a cult following. But Chaison left that restaurant in 2022. Since her departure, Chaison has quietly become one of the city’s up-and-coming restaurateurs, the mind behind places like Latin American gluten-free restaurant Mestizo, mezcal and dessert bar Libre, pick-and-choose spot Phaya Thai Express, and Norah’s newer Alberta sibling. And although her distinct perspective appears in the menus and atmosphere of each of her restaurants, Norah is a testament to her warmth and perseverance, her scrappy ability to start over by connecting with emerging talents.

As a kid, Chaison didn’t dream of owning restaurants. She grew up in Southern Thailand, pounding curry paste with a mortar and pestle for family dinners and parties. At 15 she moved to Bangkok for high school, living alone in a studio apartment with no kitchen; if she made herself dinner, it was rice and eggs steamed in a rice cooker. Otherwise, she was trawling the city’s khao gaeng spots, a style of fast-casual eateries where diners build their own combination meals from a spread of curries.

Moving to the US brought Chaison into the restaurant world, waiting tables in Kansas and Tennessee while working toward a master’s degree. She later moved to Seattle, where she gave birth to her son. After a grueling custody battle, Chaison was nearly destitute, maxing out credit cards for legal fees. She needed a change, so when an acquaintance in Portland, Sarah “Pear” Jansala, reached out about opening a restaurant together, Chaison was all in.

By the time Kati opened in 2016, Portland’s Thai food world was already saturated. Andy Ricker had just added Pok Pok Wing on SE Milwaukie to his growing footprint, Akkapong Earl Ninsom was turning heads at Southern fried chicken destination Hat Yai, and Nong Poonsukwattana’s khao man gai empire had grown well beyond its original chicken and rice cart. Partially to distinguish themselves, Jansala and Chaison decided to serve an entirely vegan menu, full of recognizable Thai dishes that swapped meat for tofu and tempeh. To helm the kitchen, Jansala tapped Thakrit “Boss” Phimmanon, a singing instructor and self-taught chef she knew from Thailand. Chaison and Phimmanon developed a tight bond, and consider each other siblings.

Despite the crowded scene, Kati stood out. The ubiquity of ingredients like dried shrimp and fish sauce made many Thai restaurants inaccessible to vegans, and they flocked to Kati for its ease and approachability. But soon, nonvegans followed, drawn to the industrial chic aesthetic and bright, vegetable-laden dishes. In late 2019, Chaison expanded beyond Thailand’s culinary lexicon, opening Mestizo next door. Summery and splashed with vibrant blues, the restaurant churned out margaritas and caipirinhas paired with tostadas, ceviches, and rice bowls; Chaison’s parents make all its empanadas by hand. It was Chaison’s first professional foray into Latin American cooking, and the impetus for her future dessert and mezcal bar, Libre. But in the summer of 2022, Chaison parted ways with Kati, taking Phimmanon with her.

While she avoids going into detail, Chaison’s decision to leave her first restaurant was difficult and painful—“I put my heart and my soul into Kati,” she says. But it awarded her an opportunity to start anew, unconstrained by expectations of what a Thai restaurant “should” look like. She and Phimmanon envisioned a restaurant where they could do “whatever the hell [they] wanted,” with a smaller, more focused menu and innovative dishes inspired by cuisines in Southeast Asia and beyond. Prae Nobnorb, a former server at Kati, joined as a co-owner, and the team opened Norah in December 2022.

Chaison and Phimmanon developed many of the restaurant’s dishes together, like the volcano miso mala soup: Phimmanon grinds black bean paste, Sichuan peppercorns, cumin, and other aromatics into a spice paste; Chaison makes a vegetable and mushroom consommé, and uses Phimmanon’s spice paste to create the broth. While Phimmanon spent most of his time on the food, Chaison focused on the bar program, infusing classic cocktails with Southeast Asian ingredients like guava and tamarind.

As Norah grew into a neighborhood fixture, Chaison began to eye other opportunities for collaboration. She had hosted various pop-ups at Mestizo, where she befriended pastry chef Gabriella Martinez. The Southern California–raised chef and Wolfgang Puck alum made a name for herself as one of Portland’s most imaginative pastry chefs, previously working at spots like República and Dame, as well as her pop-up Sweet Creature. When Turkish restaurant Lokanta closed on SE Clinton, the two teamed up with Nobnorb and Nudi co-owner Tonia Ponlakhan to open Libre in 2023.

Ponlakhan designed the dessert lounge’s dreamy decor, lush teals and purples providing a moody backdrop for Chaison’s agave cocktails and Martinez’s playful creations. Here, strawberry-mezcal old-fashioneds and mole milk punches arrive alongside bone marrow–caramel tres leches with chorizo honey. Like Norah, it resists being pinned down by a single definition, pulling inspiration from Tokyo as much as Mexico City.

Phaya Thai came next, in the spring of 2024. Ponlakhan suggested the team open a khao gaeng spot, not unlike the ones Chaison visited in her Bangkok years. At the busy SE Hawthorne counter-service restaurant, servers ladle steaming curries and stir-fries over rice, pairing them with savory Thai pastries and Chaison’s cocktails. Chaison’s mother cooks at Phaya Thai, and her sister Wichuta “Ning” Chattamat moved from Thailand to join the team—you can find her there most days, as cheerful and friendly as her sister Nan.

“This is a beautiful thing: We make food, we make cocktails,” Chaison says. “It’s supposed to be a happy place. And to have a happy restaurant, we have to have happy employees working here, you know?”