AN EXCUSE TO GET TOGETHER…

Chef/owner Courtney Sproule’s “groundbreaking” din din was credited with “reimagining the
Portland [,OR] restaurant.” A two-time winner of Portland Monthly’s Best Restaurant, the
decade-lived din din began as a public supper club that evolved into a brick and mortar
restaurant and events space.

While founding din din, Courtney had the honor of instructing at the Chef Studio, the lauded
cooking school of mentor Chef Robert Reynolds who gifted her with knowledge of French
regional cooking from those he studied under, renowned French Chefs Madeleine Kamman and
Josephine Araldo.

Courtney’s dishes nod to regional French cuisine yet are aggressively flavorful and presented
with a modern and feminine hand. As articulated by food critic Karen Brooks, Courtney’s
cooking tastes as if “Julia Child had joined the riot grrl movement.” Her menus unfurl in a
literary arc and are characterized by conscientious sourcing of local ingredients. A wine buyer
for over a decade, Courtney weaves enriching wine and spirit pairings into her menus.

Courtney is drawn to cooking by the duality of food: at once basic to survival as well as a cultural
act that is uniquely human; both a humble common ground and a platform for creative expression.
If, as Reynolds contended, “the table is an excuse to come together,” Courtney’s
approach to hosting is an exaggerated version of this idea.

din din’s synesthetic occasions included “din mini,” a 23-course offering of miniature plates and
beverages at a table of hyperbolic proportions, and annual Valentine's Day “sexy din dins”
where cooks in heels and pearls served silky purées and liquor-laden sauces to guests being
serenaded by a fiddler. These one-seating, prix fixe evenings unfolded more like an event than
a restaurant meal.

Now NYC-based, Courtney is speaking her whimsical, every-detail-considered hosting style
primarily and proudly through her dishes. While humbly carrying forth the baton of centuries of
culinary tradition that first wooed her to the table, she is adding her voice to New York’s goliath
food world with pop ups designed to charm with cuisine refreshingly personal both to herself
and to each guest she serves.

Courtney’s culinary foundation was built working under James Beard Award-Winning Chef Vitaly
Paley at Paley’s Place and celebrity chef Naomi Pomeroy at BEAST. She served on the board of
the Hollywood Farmers Market, Portland’s oldest farmers market. Courtney’s extensive event
coordination experience brings a uniquely rounded perspective to her work, having produced
highly stylized, 1,000+ guest events for the International Association of Culinary Professionals,
film company LAIKA, and Stumptown Coffee Roasters.