chefs and restaurants

These chefs and restaurants are the 2024 James Beard Award winners.

Were presented on Monday night to several chefs and restaurants that showcase regions and cultures that have been historically overlooked in the US when honoring culinary excellence.

Combining ingredients from his West African background with New Orleans fare, chef Serigne Mbaye of Dakar NOLA, the winner of Best New Restaurant, crafts an elegant Senegalese tasting menu.

At the awards ceremony held at the Lyric Opera in Chicago, Mbaye said, “I always thought that West Africa had something to say,” despite the fact that he was serving classic Creole and French cuisine at other restaurants. “It kept me going.”

Langbaan, Portland, Oregon’s Outstanding Restaurant winner, offers a five-course tasting menu that reimagines traditional Thai cuisine with ingredients sourced from the Pacific Northwest.

The Outstanding Chef winner, Michael Rafidi, dedicated his award speech to the Palestinian people everywhere. Rafidi’s creative interpretations of traditional Arabic food at his Michelin-starred restaurant, Albi, in Washington, DC, are influenced by his family’s past as Ramallah residents.

The cuisine of the Philippines, Mexico, Japan, Peru, Vietnam, and Senegal, among other nations, will grace tables across America thanks to the 2024 winners. Thanks to this year’s awards, restaurants in many smaller locations and states that were not previously recognized with James Beard Awards are now recognized.

“Two words that have never been used here before: West Virginia,” said Paul Smith, chef at 1010 Bridge in Charleston, West Virginia, and winner of Best Chef: Southeast. The Lula Drake Wine Parlour in Columbia, South Carolina was awarded the Best Wine and Other Beverage Program title. Mystic, Connecticut; Mission, Texas; and Easton, Maryland are home to award-winning chefs.

A few winners seem to have benefitted from a fortuitous course correction.

Masako Morishita moved to Washington, DC, to serve as a cheerleader for the Washington Commanders, having spent her early years in Japan. Atsuko Fujimoto had never worked in a professional kitchen before relocating to Portland, Maine, from Tokyo 23 years ago.

They began working in the food industry in new jobs.

Morishita, who won the Emerging Chef Award for her Japanese comfort food at Perry’s, a long-closed restaurant in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC, that she worked to reopen, exclaimed, “This is my greatest American dream come true.”

Fujimoto received the Outstanding Baker award from Norimoto Bakery in Portland, Maine.

During the evening, a number of topics related to the restaurant industry and culture at large were covered, including diversity, climate change, sustainability, and mental health.

A few recipients received accomplishment awards on Monday night. Among the others in the group was the well-known food writer, editor, novelist, and television personality Ruth Reichl, who served as The New York Times’s food critic and head editor of Gourmet Magazine before being honored for her Lifetime Achievement.

Reichl thanked everyone in attendance as well as the James Beard Foundation.culinary elite as a result of the changes she has personally witnessed in American food culture.

“You changed our eating habits, sparked a delicious revolution, and ultimately helped people understand that eating is a moral requirement and that what we eat counts.”That gives me hope for the future,” she said.

Prior to the event, which was streamed live on Eater, Reichl was asked where the expression “Oscars of the culinary world” first appeared on the red carpet. When she realized that she had created it in her report from the first awards, more than thirty years ago, she was horrified.

The charity James Beard Foundation was established with the goal of “celebrating, supporting, and elevating the people behind America’s culinary culture” shortly after “pioneer gourmet” James Beard passed away in 1986. The first awards ceremony took place in 1991.

Beard hosted the first food program on network television, “I Love to Eat,” in 1946. The New York Times referred to Beard as the “Dean of American Cookery” in 1954.

The recently publicized foundation released new guidelines and protocols in 2022, along with a revised code of ethics, in response to grievances over a perceived lack of diversity and charges of unethical behavior by chefs. Last year, the process for evaluating chefs’ conduct generated controversy of its own.

chefs and restaurants

A handful of the night’s winners expressed the hope that industry reforms will lead to further advancements in culinary culture.

My only hope at this point is that our industry can continue to act morally.

Gourdet described his 2008 migration to Portland, Oregon from New York, how he came out of treatment early, “fallen and depressed,” and how he found his destiny as a chef who would make his restaurant Kann a hub for Haitian culture.

“I anticipate that the next generation will have slightly better circumstances than we do, and the generation after that will have even better circumstances than they did, if we can gradually implement the necessary activities. And we can just get rid of the generational trauma that has been holding our industry captive and afflicting us.

Outstanding Restaurateur

Hamissi Mamba and Nadia Nijimbere, Baobab Fare, Detroit, MI

Quynh-Vy and Yenvy Pham, Phở Bắc Súp Shop, Phởcific Standard Time, and The Boat, Seattle, WA

Chris Viaud, Greenleaf, Ansanm, and Pavilion, Milford and Wolfeboro, NH

Hollis Wells Silverman, Eastern Point Collective (The Duck & The Peach, Méli, The Wells, and others), Washington, D.C.

Outstanding Chef

Sarah Minnick, Lovely’s Fifty Fifty, Portland, OR

Dean Neff, Seabird, Wilmington, NC

WINNER: Michael Rafidi, Albi, Washington, D.C.

Renee Touponce, The Port of Call, Mystic, CT

David Uygur, Lucia, Dallas, TX

Outstanding Restaurant

The Compound, Santa Fe, NM

Convenience West, Marfa, TX

WINNER: Langbaan, Portland, OR

Mixtli, San Antonio, TX

Vestige, Ocean Springs, MS

Emerging Chef

Fariyal Abdullahi, Hav & Mar, New York, NY

Janet Becerra, Pancita, Seattle, WA

Nikko Cagalanan, Kultura, Charleston, SC

Ryan Fernandez, Southern Junction, Buffalo, NY

WINNER: Masako Morishita, Perry’s, Washington, D.C.

Best New Restaurant

Bar Bacetto, Waitsburg, WA

Barbs-B-Q, Lockhart, TX

Chez Noir, Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA

Comfort Kitchen, Dorchester, MA

WINNER: Dakar NOLA, New Orleans, LA

Hayward, McMinnville, OR

Kaya, Orlando, FL

Kisser, Nashville, TN

Oro by Nixta, Minneapolis, MN

Shan, Bozeman, MT

Outstanding Bakery

The Burque Bakehouse, Albuquerque, NM

Gusto Bread, Long Beach, CA

JinJu Patisserie, Portland, OR

Mel the Bakery, Hudson, NY

WINNER: ZU Bakery, Portland, MEOutstanding Pastry Chef or Baker

Susan Bae, Moon Rabbit, Washington, D.C.

Jesus Brazon and Manuel Brazon, Caracas Bakery, Doral and Miami, FL

WINNER: Atsuko Fujimoto, Norimoto Bakery, Portland, ME

Crystal Kass, Valentine, Phoenix, AZ

Anna Posey, Elske, Chicago, IL