SOLD OUT!

Cooking is chemistry. Music is physics. Learning is alchemy. This event celebrates transformation across disciplines, showing how the right environment can turn raw ingredients into something powerful.

Some evenings just change you.

About Alchemy

Alchemy is a one-night, fully immersive dining experience where food, music, and storytelling collide.

In partnership with ELSO Inc., a Black and female-led organization connecting Black and Brown youth to science, nature, and the outdoors, this evening unfolds through four thematic chapters—curiosity, connection, transformation, and home. These chapters are brought to life by chefs Jewan and Elsy, accompanied by live music that holds the room from first bite to last.

The evening includes a multi-course family style dinner, served the way food was meant to be: shared, unhurried, and full of intention.

Seats are limited and this event will sell out. If you’ve been to a TASTE event before, you know. If this is your first time — welcome. This table was made for you.

In addition to ELSO Inc., proceeds from the TASTE for Equity Event Series also benefit two additional powerful Portland organizations: APANO, uniting Asian and Pacific Islanders to build power and advance equity, and Adelante Mujeres, empowering Latine women and their families to lead.

We will be sharing more information about our food & beverage soon!

Join the Waitlist

Please reach out to us with any questions: [email protected]

Featured Chefs

Chef Jewan Manuel

Plant-Based Papi

Chef Jewan Manuel, one of Portland’s leading vegan chefs, has been making waves ever since he started cooking as Plant-Based Papi in 2018. As a high-profile Black chef in Portland’s thriving vegan food scene, Jewan is devoted to using food as a way to express his own legacy.

Q: How does your cuisine reflect your personal identities/social roles?

“No matter what,” Jewan says, “I'm Black before I'm vegan; I'm Black before I'm a chef… [Being] the only Black person in a space, they may assume that you may not know much about a certain cuisine,” Jewan says. “But if you're studying your craft, you're passionate about what you do, it's cool to see that translate.”

Q: How has the food industry brought you closer to your community? Where do you find belonging?

“Earlier on when I first started making food, you know, tacos and burgers—and people would say, ‘I love your vegan soul food,’” Jewan says. “If we bend in between cuisines or do fusion dishes, it's a beautiful thing [when] other Black people can see themselves in me or know that there's nothing to be afraid of when working through food and expressing your art.”

Chef Elsy Dinvil

Creole Me Up

Chef Elsy Dinvil grew up cooking alongside her mother in Jérémie, Haiti, making epis-spiced meatballs, pikliz, and waking up early to pound spices. However, when she moved to Oregon in the 1990s, she began a battle with gastrointestinal disease that pushed her toward her focus on clean food.

Q: What was the differentiating moment when you were like, "Okay, I love to cook, but now I'm a chef"?

“When I immigrated to the US, after a couple of years, I started going back and forth to emergency rooms for gastrointestinal issues…the first thing they did was a food allergy testing. And then back then, all the foods that I was eating, I was allergic to them…The picture is still in my head today, a human living but dying. That's when I decided that I was going to make foods with flavors, bold flavors, but without all the chemicals and allergens, all the fillers, all the cannin—natural food that can support people's happiness and belly. I bring joy to people's palates and to their health.

In 2017, through all my health issues I had become homeless—I was on and off the street. And then I met Jaime Soltero, the owner of Tamale Boy, selling tamales in a parking lot. I walked up to him and I'm like, "That's exactly what I want to do." And he said, "If you are serious about it I'm gonna help you." He took me under his wings. I didn't have a penny, all broke, on and off, no shoes. I still have those tennis shoes in my house as a souvenir for the journey… He was like a mentor, teaching me what to do on and off, and here I am today. If it wasn't for Jaime Soltero, I wouldn't be here today in front of you. So he's my angel.”

Featured Winemaker

Tiquette Bramlett

Henderson Ave Wines

Winemaker Tiquette Bramlett became the first Black woman to lead a U.S. winery in 2021 and was named VP of Chosen Family Wines in 2023 (shoutout previous TASTE winemaker, Channing Frye!). Originally pursuing music, her path shifted after a thyroid cancer diagnosis, leading her to discover winemaking and its roots in community. After moving to Oregon and working as a sommelier, she launched Henderson Ave Wines—featuring Willamette Valley wines in chic cans with music-inspired notes—while also founding Our Legacy Harvested to expand access, education, and opportunity within the wine industry.

Q: Our “Seeds, Becoming” poem ends with the line, “We were seeds. Now we're the season.” If you had to step away from the harvest, the juice, and the business for a moment, what would you name this current season of your life?

“Oh, that just gave me chills. It would really be the blossoming. I think about what my journey has been these last 10 years of battling cancer—this is the first time in my life I can say loudly and proudly that I am cancer-free. I’m stepping into this new season where I'm now able to share a piece of myself that I have kept inside for a very long time. And being able to share this piece of me and being able to storytell about wine in the way that I want to, it's very freeing and very joyful.”