James Beard finalists include an East African restaurant in Detroit and Seattle pho shops
CHICAGO– An East African eatery in Detroit, old family-owned pho shops in Seattle and a Palestinian chef using age-old cooking techniques in Washington, D.C., are among the dozens of finalists for this year’s prestigious James Beard Awards.
The culinary world’s equivalent of the Oscars will recognize restaurants and chefs in 22 categories at a ceremony Monday in Chicago.
The nominees cover a wide range of cuisines and chef experience recent shift after turbulent years in the pandemic era for the Jacobus Baard Foundation. The most anticipated categories include awards for excellent restaurateur, chef and restaurant.
Hamissi Mamba and Nadia Nijimbere, who fled Burundi about a decade ago and now own Baobab Fare in Detroit, are among the five finalists in the outstanding restaurateur category. The couple faced a difficult road when refugees opened a business in the US
Their restaurant’s menu features kuku, fried chicken in a spicy mustard-onion sauce served with fried plantains, stewed yellow beans and coconut rice.
“We inspire a lot of refugees – refugees who come to this country without hope and think one day they can win these kinds of titles,” Mamba said. “It’s a big deal for us because we want to show people that this world can be equal.”
The James Beard Foundation has presented awards since 1991, except in 2020 and 2021, when the organization eliminated them as the restaurant industry reeled from the COVID-19 pandemic and faced criticism over a lack of racial diversity and accusations about the behavior of some nominees. Foundation officials vowed to improve ethical standards and “be more reflective of the industry.”
Restaurants sign up for the prices. Judges, who usually remain anonymous, try the kitchen before voting. Nominees are judged on food and a code of ethics, including the way employees are treated.
“We look at the whole board,” said Tanya Holland, chair of the awards committee.
For restaurants, just being a finalist can bring widespread recognition and boost sales. Restaurant awards have become less common in recent years, giving the James Beard Awards even more weight, says Paul Freedman, a professor at Yale University whose expertise includes food history.
“It really brings attention to restaurants that may not be well known outside of their region,” he said.
A Seattle family who brought the first pho shop to town in the 1980s is also a finalist for outstanding restaurateur with a trio of pho restaurants and their chicken and rice shop called The Boat.
Yenvy Pham, whose parents opened their first restaurant after emigrating from Vietnam, calls a bowl of their pho, with its hearty bone broth and aromatics of anise and clove, a “sure thing.” They make the soup fresh every day for 24 hours.
“It’s wild,” she said. “It’s a great honour.”
The other restaurateur finalists are Chris Viaud with three restaurants in New Hampshire, Hollis Wells Silverman with the Eastern Point Collective which runs several restaurants in Washington, DC, and Erika and Kelly Whitaker for restaurants in Boulder, Colorado.
Some finalists are already receiving praise, including Michael Rafidi, whose Washington, DC restaurant Albi was awarded a coveted Michelin star in 2022. He is one of the five finalists for outstanding chef.
Albi, which is Arabic for “my heart,” pays tribute to Rafidi’s Palestinian roots by using Old World food preparation techniques. Everything is cooked over charcoal, including grape leaves stuffed with lamb and sfeeha, a meat pie.
“It is a mission for me to continue spreading light and cooking Palestinian food,” he said.
Another finalist for outstanding chef is David Uygur, who runs a small Italian restaurant in Dallas. Lucia offers fresh homemade pasta and a popular cured meat plate. The menu changes seasonally.
Uygur, whose father is Turkish, became interested in Italian food out of love. His high school sweetheart, now wife, loved Italian cuisine. He was looking for a sense of intimacy in his restaurant with only nine tables.
“I wanted the restaurant to feel like someone was coming to eat our house,” he said. “I wanted our guests in our house.”
Other outstanding chef finalists include Sarah Minnick for Lovely’s Fifty Fifty in Portland, Oregon, Dean Neff of Seabird in Wilmington, North Carolina, and Renee Touponce for The Port of Call in Mystic, Connecticut.
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Associated Press writer Mike Householder in Detroit contributed to this story.