Handicapping the Beard Award Nominees
The James Beard Award nominations were announced yesterday, and at Serious Eats we don't want you to have to sift through all nine pages of nominees [PDF], so let's see if we can cut to the chase for you.
The Outstanding Restaurateur nominees feature some actual and different heavyweight restaurateurs, including Richard Melman (Lettuce Entertain You, Chicago), Drew Nieporent (Nobu (NY), Rubicom (SF), and many others), and Keith McNally (Balthazar, Pastis, and Morandi, among others). All three of them have made a point of not cloning any of their restaurants, which I really appreciate.
The Best New Restaurant nominees feature three of my favorite cooks, including Donald Link (Cochon, in New Orleans), David Chang (Momofuku Ssam Bar), and Andrew Carmellini (A Voce in NYC). I'd be happy to have my last supper at any of those places.
The Rising Star Chef nominees include the very talented Graham Eliot Bowles (Avenues at the Peninsula Hotel, Chicago), Daniel Humm (Eleven Madison Park, NYC), and the aforementioned Mr. Chang.
It is clear that David Chang is the It Boy of the culinary world these days, and deservedly so.
In the coming days, we Serious Eaters will delve into other categories and conduct our own straw polls on all the categories.
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3 Comments:
The fact that Chef David Kinch of Manresa in Los Gatos, CA. was left out of the nominations yet again is a culinary travesty. As many informed and well-travelled epicureans will attest; he is producing some of the very best food in North America --- CONSISTANTLY.
pixelchef at 6:55PM on 03/20/07
Yeah. I keep reading about Mr. Kinch's food on the SF food sites and was surprised to see his absence from the list. I'm sure he'll get recognition eventually, à la Susan Lucci and AC/DC.
Adam Kuban at 10:33AM on 03/21/07
Thanks for posting the pdf. I looked through it and saw Michel Richards in the outstanding chef category. After procastinating a couple of times to drive up to DC and try Citronelle, I finally made reservations (boy are they hard to get for a Saturday) for Apr. 28th!
Veron at 3:07PM on 03/21/07