Bay Area restaurants shut out of the James Beard Awards 2023

Chef, baker, bar finalists come up empty

The San Francisco Bay Area had three finalists in the running for the country’s top culinary awards but came up empty when the James Beard Foundation medallions were bestowed on chefs, restaurateurs and others Monday evening in Chicago.

In the national categories, modern French pastry chef Margarita Manzke, of Republique in Los Angeles, won for Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker over a field of finalists that included Vince Bugtong of Abaca in San Francisco (formerly of Oakland’s dessert and cocktail bar, Viridian). Manzke had been nominated five times previously.

Ototo, a Los Angeles sake bar, took home the Beard award for Outstanding Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program, beating out Lazy Bear of San Francisco and three other finalists.

And in the regional Best Chef: California contest, chef-owner Justin Pichetrungsi of Anajak Thai restaurant in Sherman Oaks won the award over Kyle and Katina Connaughton of Healdsburg’s Michelin-starred SingleThread and three Los Angeles finalists.

San Francisco wasn’t the only celebrated dining capital to be shut out of the JBFs. For the second year, no New Orleans chefs won awards, according to NOLA.com. Minneapolis also was shut out, after winning the Best New Restaurant award in 2022.

This ceremony was just the second Beards since 2019. The awards had gone on hiatus in 2020 and 2021, with the foundation citing the pandemic-caused disruption to the industry. In the interim, the group pledged to work toward its stated objectives to “remove any systemic bias, increase the diversity of the pool of candidates, maintain relevance, and align the awards more outwardly with the foundation’s values of equity, equality, sustainability, and excellence for the restaurant industry.”

During that time, the foundation established a code of ethics as a guideline for all entrants, semifinalists and nominees, as well as its voting body. An independent volunteer ethics committee was set up to provide oversight.

Overall, a diverse collection of chefs won Beard medallions on Monday. Natalia Vallejo became the first Puerto Rican woman to receive an award, winning as Best Chef: South award. She is the chef-owner of Cocina al Fondo in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The Best Chef: Northeast honoree was indigenous chef Sherry Pocknett of the Rhode Island restaurant Sly Fox Den Too. “This is something I never even dreamed of,” she said, noting that the award came on the birthday of her grandmother, one of her mentors.

The Lifetime Achievement Award went to trailblazing Indo-American chef and cookbook author Madhur Jaffrrey, who has been writing recipes since 1973.

This is a developing story; come back for updates.