Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

James Beard Handicapping: Fill Out Your Ballots, Nationwide Edition

Posted by Ed Levine, May 4, 2007 at 2:15 PM

With the James Beard Awards coming up on Monday night, it's time for all concerned and interested to try to pick the winners. I'm going to give you my choices, but I have no advance knowledge of the winners, so you should fill out the ballot and post yours as a comment on this post. The person who has the highest number of winners will receive a copy of the Oxford Dictionary of American Food and Drink. It's a big mother of a volume that is too heavy and expensive to buy yourself. So it's a perfect prize. This post is a list of the awards that are national in scope. I'll follow this up later today with one post that gathers together all the regional award categories.

Update: Polls have now closed. We will tally the contest winners' choices as the Beard Award winners are announced.

Outstanding Restaurateur
Thomas Keller
Keith McNally
Richard Melman
Drew Nieporent
Jean-Georges Vongerichten

Tough choice: I tend to discount the chef-restaurateurs, but I don't know that the voters will. My choice: Drew Nieporent

Best New Restaurant
A Voce, New York City
Cochon, New Orleans
Cut, Beverly Hills
Restaurant Guy Savoy, Las Vegas
L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon, New York City
Momofuku Ssam Bar, New York City

Another difficult race to handicap. Again, I discount the über-chef-restaurateur options (Cut, Guy Savoy, L'Atelier), so I go with Momofuku Ssäm Bar. It's the most original restaurant of the bunch.

Rising Star Chef
Nate Appleman (A16, San Francisco)
Graham Eliot Bowles (Avenues, Chicago)
David Chang (Momofuku Ssäm Bar, New York City)
Patrick Connelly (Radius, Boston)
Daniel Humm (Eleven Madison Park, New York City)

My guess is that Chang is going to win, and he is certainly a worthy contender, but I am going to go with Graham Eliot Bowles. Daniel Humm is also monstrously talented.

Outstanding Chef
Tom Colicchio (Craft; New York City)
Lee Hefter (Spago; Beverly Hills, California)
Jean Joho (Everest; Chicago)
Paul Kahan (Blackbird; Chicago)
Michel Richard (Citronelle; Washington, D.C.)

Colicchio is probably the favorite because of his media exposure, and the man can definitely cook, but I am going to go with Paul Kahan. I love his lusty, gutsy food.
I haven't eaten Michel Richard's food in a long, long time, but I love his cookbook.

Outstanding Restaurant
Boulevard; San Francisco
Frontera Grill; Chicago
Magnolia Grill; Durham, North Carolina
Picholine; New York City
Spiaggia; Chicago

I would go with Magnolia Grill because I love Ben Barker's food and his wife Karen's desserts, but I have only eaten their food at events, so I can't really do that. I am going with Boulevard, though Picholine is an interesting dark horse.

Best Pastry Chef
Will Goldfarb (Room 4 Dessert, New York City)
Michael Laskonis (Le Bernardin, New York City)
Leslie Mackie (Macrina Bakery, Seattle)
Elizabeth Prueitt & Chad Robertson (Tartine Bakery, San Francisco)

I am going to go with Michael Laskonis, who is terrific but not my kind of pastry chef.

Oustanding Wine Service
Bin 36; Chicago
I Trulli, New York City
Mary Elaine's at the Phoenician; Scottsdale, Arizona
Citronelle; Washington, D.C.
Picasso; Las Vegas

I know nothing about wine and wine service, so I'm going with I Trulli, because it's the only restaurant I've been to among the list of nominees.

Oustanding Wine and Spirits Professional
Dale DeGroff, King Cocktail
Paul Draper, Ridge Vineyards
Dan Duckhorn, Duckhorn Vineyards
Terry Thiese, Terry Thiese Estate Selections
Helen Turley, HTM Consultants

I'm going with DeGroff, because it's about time the Beards recognized a mixologist.

Outstanding Service
Blackberry Farm; Walland, Tennessee
Canlis; Seattle
La Grenouille; New York City
Terra; St. Helena, California
Tru; Chicago

I love the unpretentious but caring service at Terra, so that's my pick.

Those are my picks, and I'm sticking to them. Submit your own picks and you might win the prize.

Comments are Closed. | Tags: James Beard Awards, restaurant industry