The Beard Foundation’s logo | Courtesy of The James Beard Foundation
I’m writing this on the day of the James Beard Foundation’s annual Restaurant and Chef Awards, which used to be quite a big deal in the world of fine dining, but now is considerably less so. But it’s arguably a bigger deal in the restaurant world at large, or at least it could be.
A lot has changed in the world of restaurant awards in the United States since the onset of the pandemic. For one thing, The World’s 50 Best Restaurants award program has expanded a lot, from one catchall list covering the entire planet to a wide array of regional awards, such as the best in Asia, Latin America, and, starting last year, North America. It also started naming the continent’s 50 best bars in 2022.
And the Michelin guides have expanded, too. The French tire company started handing out awards in its home country in 1926 in an attempt to get people to drive more, the thought being, I assume, that if people get in their cars to go to restaurants, their tires will wear out faster and therefore more will be sold.
The Michelin Guide eventually became the most prestigious recognition for European restaurants. The company attempted to do the same in the United States, starting in New York City, where it launched a guide in 2005. By 2019 it had added Chicago, Washington, D.C., and California to its portfolio and since then has expanded to 13 markets, generally with financial encouragement from local tourism bodies, convention bureaus, or related associations.
I remember when Michelin arrived in New York. It was a dud. Key restaurants were left out, and neighborhood spots that were perfectly fine but hardly worth traveling to were in the initial guide. We laughed and laughed, set the guides aside and went on with our lives.
But awards have remarkable sticking power. Because if you win an award, you’re going to shout about it from the rooftops, and understandably so. Regardless of the criteria, it’s free PR.
So the Beard Foundation is no longer the only game in town when it comes to restaurant recognition, and in fact I would argue that all of those award programs have diminished in influence considerably thanks to the dominance of social media. Anyone can post a TikTok or Instagram Reel about a restaurant and, depending on their audience, drive real traffic. They don’t even need to be Influencers with a capital ‘I’. If they have a solid local following, that can matter more than national press.
But beyond the new climate of restaurant recognition, the Beard Foundation has worked hard to change what the awards mean. I would argue their changes are better for the restaurant world, but worse for the foundation.
The awards, founded in 1990 as a booze cruise around the waterways of Manhattan, were already under pressure before the pandemic. They had gradually evolved into an old boys’ network in which the same chefs and restaurateurs, mostly white men and mostly in the major fine-dining restaurant cities such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago, were nominated year after year. When one chef won, a similar one filled his spot and year after year a similar group of judges (including myself) voted for them.
That was fine for a while. The fine-dining chef community convened for one weekend, in New York until the awards were moved to Chicago in 2015, dressed up, partied, got free press, and that was it.
But as food moved from a niche interest toward the center of American culture, the Beard Awards came under scrutiny and were under pressure to expand who was being considered.
That started to happen organically in the late 2010s as the #MeToo movement and broader cultural shifts led the awards committee and judges to expand their horizons. In fact, in 2018, the majority of individual winners (chefs, sommeliers, etc., as opposed to restaurants) were women.
During the pandemic, the awards were effectively canceled in 2020 and 2021 (smaller recognitions that were deemed something like “celebrations of chefs” were held), and the foundation took the time to reassess the awards.
Now people nominating potential winners need to write a statement explaining how the chefs, restaurants, bartenders, etc. fit into the foundation’s values “centered around creating a more equitable, sustainable, and healthy work culture.”
And a new requirement was added in 2024: Candidates had to submit a supporting video or essay about their restaurants.
The result has been that the pool of nominees (and the semifinalists from which nominees are selected, of which there were 510 this year) has been expanded considerably. Looking at this year’s list of nominees, the most prestigious award — for Outstanding Chef — includes Josh Niernberg of Bin 707 Foodbar in Grand Junction, Colorado, a city that never would have been seen under the previous system. Outstanding Restaurant nominees, except for one in New York (and it’s in Brooklyn, not Manhattan) are all great restaurants from second-tier cities including Philadelphia and St. Louis.
That doesn’t mean the old guard has been excluded. Michael Tusk of Quince in San Francisco is also on the short list for Outstanding Chef, Providence in Los Angeles is up for the award for Outstanding Hospitality, and among the nominees for Emerging Chef is E.J. Lagasse, Emeril’s son and the epitome of a legacy candidate (not for a second saying he isn’t worthy).
So although detractors have said the new awards are too “woke,” and there certainly is more diversity in terms of background, cuisine, and price point as well as geography, operators who have been around for a long time are still in the running.
But because of the change in criteria, the awards’ prestige has diminished, because we aren’t exactly clear what the awards are actually awarding. Are you being awarded for being a good citizen, an advocate for specific social-justice initiatives, or for providing great food and hospitality?
To be honest, I don’t think it’s bad to award people for being good members of the community, and shining a national spotlight on people in hospitality who would likely have remained overlooked otherwise is a good thing. It’s just going to take a while for us to understand what it all means.
But hey, each year some 500 names are being released to national media. If they have sense they’ll capitalize on it, and the prestige of the awards will grow.
