Top Toques: 2018 James Beard Chef and Restaurant Winners Announced
Want to know where to eat and drink on your next trip? Check out these award-winning chefs and restaurants in the United States.
Melanie Dunea
The 2018 James Beard Foundation awards Outstanding Chef Gabrielle Hamilton of NYC's Prune.
It's the Academy Awards of the restaurant world. Each year the James Beard Foundation (named for that celebrated teacher and cookbook author) awards its top honors to chefs and restaurants across the country.
What does this mean to you? That you need to make a reservation (stat!) at one of the award-winning restaurants if you are planning a trip to one of these cities.
And if you're a serious foodie, start plotting out how you can travel to Seattle to try Best New Restaurant winner JuneBaby or to NYC to sample for the first time, or yet again, Outstanding Chef winner Gabrielle Hamilton's much-heralded Prune.
Andrew Zimmern with Rodney Scott, James Beard winner and owner of Rodney Scott's BBQ.
A few things we gleaned from this year's winners? First, Southern food is still holding sway across the country. This year's Best New Restaurant JuneBaby celebrates innovative Southern cuisine in the state that also brought you grunge and Starbucks. And a top winner for Outstanding Restaurant and Outstanding Pastry Chef (Dolester Miles), Birmingham, Alabama's Highlands Bar & Grill proves it's still got it. Chef Frank Stitt's early interest in bringing humble Southern ingredients to table inspired by his own Cullman, Alabama childhood put his restaurant on the cutting edge of the now nationally-prominent Southern food trend. We also couldn't help but notice the shout-out to a cuisine that may have been maligned by the food establishment of the past (Scott is only the second pitmaster to win a James Beard award), in the Best Chef: Southeast winner Rodney Scott, who serves up classic whole hog at Rodney Scott's BBQ in Charleston, South Carolina. Scott is also the first African-American chef to win in the Best Chef Southeast category.
Another welcome trend: greater attention being paid to female chefs, who have often been overshadowed in the male-dominated restaurant industry. Long-celebrated Prune chef and author Gabrielle Hamilton won the award for Outstanding Chef but there were also plenty of other talented women in the mix. Dominique Crenn (featured in a fascinating episode of Netflix's "Chef's Table") won for Best Chef: West for her work at the eponymous Atelier Crenn in San Francisco, Missy Robbins is Best Chef: New York City (Lilia), Best Chef: Northeast is Karen Akunowicz (Myers + Chang, Boston), Best Chef: South went to Nina Compton (Compere Lapin) and Camille Cogswell was awarded Rising Star Chef of the Year for Zahav in Philadelphia, which celebrates the increasing prominence of Israeli cuisine in American restaurants.
Travel Channel is proud to congratulate all the winners and our team looks forward to sampling their work in the year ahead.
Read on for the complete list of this year's James Beard award-winners.
Outstanding Chef
Gabrielle Hamilton, Prune, NYC
Outstanding Restaurant
Highlands Bar & Grill, Birmingham, AL
Outstanding Restaurateur
Caroline Styne, The Lucques Group (Lucques, a.o.c., Tavern and others), Los Angeles
Outstanding Service
Zuni Café, San Francisco
Best New Restaurant
JuneBaby, Seattle
Kevin O'Mara, curenola.com
Cure is one of New Orleans's rising stars in the craft cocktail and cuisine scene and has revitalized the Uptown neighborhood around Freret Street. It is also a 2018 James Beard winner for Outstanding Bar Program.
Outstanding Bar Program
Cure, New Orleans
Squire Fox
FIG takes “locally sourced” and “farm-to-table” to an all-new level, using local ingredients at their peak and preparing them minimally to capture the flavor of the season.
Outstanding Wine Program
FIG, Charleston, SC
Outstanding Wine, Beer or Spirits Professional
Miljenko Grgich (Grgich Hills Estate, Rutherford, CA)
Outstanding Pastry Chef
Dolester Miles, Highlands Bar & Grill, Birmingham, AL
Outstanding Baker
Belinda Long and Michel Suas, B. Patisserie, San Francisco
Rising Star Chef of the Year
Camille Cogswell, Zahav, Philadelphia
Eric Wolfinger
One of the conceptual dishes offered at San Francisco's In Situ restaurant, located inside the SFMOCA museum and awarded a James Beard honor in 2018 Best Restaurant Design.
Outstanding Restaurant Design (76 seats and over)
Firms: Aidlin Darling Design with a l m project
Designers: Joshua Aidlin, David Darling, Adam Rouse and Andrea Lenardin Madden
Project: In Situ, San Francisco
Outstanding Restaurant Design (76 seats and under)
Firm: The MP Shift
Designers: Amy Morris, Anna Polonsky and Julie Nerenberg
Project: De Maria, NYC
Design Icon
The American Restaurant, Kansas City, Missouri
Best Chef: New York City
Missy Robbins (Lilia)
Minnesota Restaurant With Authentic Local Charm
Locally made objects — found and borrowed — tie the entire Spoon and Stable experience together with true Minnesotan collaboration. Stories from the chef’s experiences all over the world were brought into the space with local artists, friends and connections as a celebration of the chef’s Minnesota hometown. The space is filled with authentic stories made to share around the table in a true chef’s kitchen.
Photo by: Travis Anderson
Travis Anderson
Locally made objects — found and borrowed — tie the entire Spoon and Stable experience together with true Minnesotan collaboration. Stories from the chef’s experiences all over the world were brought into the space with local artists, friends and connections as a celebration of the chef’s Minnesota hometown. The space is filled with authentic stories made to share around the table in a true chef’s kitchen.
Best Chef: Midwest (IA, KS, MN, MO, NE, ND, SD, WI)
Gavin Kaysen (Spoon and Stable, Minneapolis)
Best Chef: West (CA, HI, NV)
Dominique Crenn (Atelier Crenn, San Francisco)
McCall Burau
Lattes are from Mercantile Dining & Provisions in Denver, Colorado.
Best Chef: Southwest (AZ, CO, NM, OK, TX, UT)
Alex Seidel (Mercantile Dining & Provision, Denver)
Best Chef: Northwest (AK, ID, MT, OR, WA, WY)
Edouardo Jordan (Salare, Seattle)
Best Chef: Northeast (CT, MA, ME, NH, NY State, RI, VT)
Karen Akunowicz (Myers + Chang, Boston)
Best Chef: Great Lakes (IL, IN, MI, OH)
Abraham Conlon (Fat Rice, Chicago)
Best Chef: South (AL, AR, FL, LA, MS, Puerto Rico)
Nina Compton (Compere Lapin, New Orleans)
Best Chef: Southeast (GA, KY, NC, SC, TN, WV)
Rodney Scott (Rodney Scott's BBQ, Charleston, SC)
Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic (DC, DE, MD, NJ, PA, VA)
Jeremiah Langhorne (The Dabney, Washington D.C.)
