Meet the 2024 class of James Beard Award-winning chefs

The James Beard Awards this year offered a glimpse into the restaurant scenes of some of America’s smaller towns.

It is the result of a few years of change for the Beard Foundation, which orchestrated a controversial overhaul of the selection process with the goal of making the awards more equitable and to better represent the diversity of the industry.

In prior years, chefs in New York City, San Francisco and Chicago seemed to dominate. Now the regional chef awards draw more attention to those cooking in smaller towns. As a result, this year’s crop of award winners brought the spotlight to cities like Portland, Maine (apparently a great town for pastry); Columbia, South Carolina; Mystic, Connecticut; and Mission, Texas.

So who are these chefs and restaurant operators that took home the medals this year?

Here’s a quick look at the regional chef award winners.

A chef and restaurateur with several concepts in Charleston, West Virginia, Smith is the first to bring a Beard award to his home state.

He won for his work at 1010 Bridge, which opened four years ago to showcase Appalachian cuisine and ingredients from local farms and vendors. In his acceptance speech, Smith said he sold his home in 2020 to open the restaurant, which he owns with Aaron and Marie Clark.

He also co-owns the Filipino restaurant Barkadas, and operates The Pitch Sports Bar & Grill and Ellen’s Ice Cream.

The Filipino restaurant Kuya Lord in Los Angeles began as a popup and reportedly moved into a permanent location in 2022. It’s known for classic dishes, like slow-cooked pork belly (lucenachon) and rice bowls (silogs).

Llera describes the 28-seat restaurant as elevated fast casual, doing mostly takeout and advance-order catering. But Llera, who was born and raised in the Philippines, is a Culinary Institute of America grad who has worked with some of Los Angeles’ top chefs, including Neal Fraser, Nyesha Arrington and Walter Manske. Llera, for example, was sous chef to Ori Menashe at the LA restaurant Bestia before becoming culinary director for h.wood Group (The Nice Guy, Delilah, etc.)

Hajime Sato is the first sushi chef to win a James Beard award. At his restaurant Sozai in Clawson, Michigan, he is known for sustainable sushi, with a focus on traceability, fishing populations and methods and farming practices.

There’s an omakase menu at the sushi bar, and a more-exclusive four-hour kappo menu with traditional and creative Japanese fare, though he describes himself as “just a guy who wants to make the sushi rice a little better today than I did yesterday.”

In fact, the restaurant’s website warns: “We do not make California rolls. We do not have spicy mayonnaise. We do not serve cocktails.”

In his acceptance speech, Sato said he has been preaching about sustainable seafood for 15 years, saying, “The oceans are not in good shape. The earth is not in good shape. A small restaurant like me cannot do that much.”

But Sato said something changed after he was nominated for a Beard award last year. “People started listening to me,” he said.

He urged the Beard award audience to use their voice and platform to make change. “I need everybody’s help so maybe we can do this ceremony 10 years from now and say we did something, and then go to fancy dinners after that.”

Peet (with glasses, pictured here with his team and husband) is the executive chef at Bas Rouge, an elegant European-style restaurant in charming Easton, Maryland, on the Chesapeake Bay. The restaurant is part of Bluepoint Hospitality, which includes the concepts Weather Gage, Benjamin and The Stewart.

Also a CIA grad, Peet’s past experience includes the Tilghman Island Inn and working with chef Mark Salter at The Inn at Perry Cabin, before joining Bluepoint in 2014.

Bas Rouge offers a three- or four-course prix fixe with wine pairings with dishes like Foie Gras Ganache with compressed strawberries, coconut-pretzel feuilletine and balsamic strawberry gel; and Roulade of poussin with caramelized onion and potato puree and chasseur sauce.

Nguyen of the Minneapolis restaurants Hai Hai and Hola Arepa said her parents were refugees from Vietnam who came to the U.S. and had to start their lives over. “They taught me anything is possible and not to be afraid,” she said.

She thanked the Beard foundation for recognizing “immigrant food,” and not allowing restaurants like hers to be dismissed on lists for “cheap eats,” she said. The menu at Hai Hai features dishes like chicken laab lettuce wraps; Hanoi sticky rice; Balinese chicken thighs; and Vietnamese crepe with pork belly and shrimp.

Nguyen has been nominated several times before, but this is her first win.

A Colorado native, Vawter started cooking in a local diner at age 14 and said he never looked back. He spent years working with famed Colorado chef Alex Seidel at the restaurants Fruition and later Mercantile Dining & Provisions.

Rootstalk, the restaurant Vawter founded in Breckenridge, Colorado, opened in 2020 in a historic home offering “elevated everyday dining,” like French onion soup, duck cassoulet and house-made pastas. There’s also a seven-course tasting menu with wine pairings.

Vawter’s second concept is Radicato, also in Breckenridge, with an Italian spin.

Mitchell at his Brooklyn restaurant Clover Hill reportedly last year became the first Black chef to earn a Michelin star in New York City.

The 20-seat restaurant on a historic cobblestone block of Brooklyn Heights Historic District is described as delivering “an experience that feels like home,” on the restaurant’s website. It’s owned by Mitchell with partners Clay Castillo and Gabriel Merino.

Mitchell was nominated for a Beard award in the Emerging Chef category last year. This year, he brought family members to the ceremony, including his mother and grandmother. “I’m a product of love and that’s what got me here today,” he said.

A first Beard medal for the small town of Mystic, Connecticut, Standridge said he opened The Shipwright’s Daughter in 2020, which was probably the worst time ever. “It’s almost irrational for ownership to have stuck with us,” he said.

At the time, he and his wife had a newborn and an 18-month old, and Standridge thanked her for her “heroic act” of taking care of the family as he got the restaurant going.

The Shipwright’s Daughter is known for its use of sustainable, local wild seafood “in a town where people want fried clams and lobster rolls,” he said.

“It’s hard enough just to run a restaurant, but to do things that impact your communities in a greater way, I’m so proud of the James Beard Foundation for standing behind these people,” said Standridge.

His prior experience includes The Four Seasons in Houston, L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon in New York (where the team won two Michelin stars), and Sonnier & Castle.

Gourdet, who is now described as a celebrity chef, took home his third Beard medal this week. He won for his cookbook “Everyone’s Table,” and his Haitian restaurant Kann in Portland, Oregon, was named Best New Restaurant last year.

At the ceremony, the chef and restaurateur spoke of beating drug and alcohol addiction, finding purpose as a chef, and thanking team members who helped him along the way.

Wearing a suit designed with plumage to represent Haiti’s national bird, Gourdet urged the crowd at the ceremony to remember, as they “celebrate in abundance and privilege,” that “access to food is a basic human right and it should never be used as a tool of war against innocent people.”

“Miami, finally we won!” said Chang in her speech this week.

The win was bittersweet for Chang, who named her Peruvian restaurant Maty’s in Miami for her grandmother, who had passed away just days before the ceremony.

Chang, whose parents had emigrated from Peru, reportedly opened Maty’s in 2023 and has racked up accolades, from Food & Wine to Bon Appetit.

It was the third nomination for Andrade, who finally took home the medal for his restaurant Bacanora in Phoenix. Andrade was a finalist for Best New Restaurant in 2022, and a semifinalist for the regional chef award last year.

Originally from the town of Nogales in the Sonoran region of Mexico, Andrade said he was inspired by his parents and grandmother, who used to “cook and cook and cook,” and represented magic to him.

At Bacanora, Andrade cooks over a wood-fired grill, with daily specials alongside classic mains, like pollo asado and a burrito or tostada.

Andrade also operates the taco shop Huarachis Taqueria in Phoenix.

Pulido is described as a rising talent from South Texas as the  first chef to bring a medal to the town of Mission. At her restaurant Ana Liz Taqueria, she is passionate about nixtamalization, which can be viewed on her Instagram.

A graduate of the CIA’s San Antonio campus, Pulido also comes from a restaurant family. Her father operated a taqueria in both Mexico and the U.S.

Like Andrade, Pulido slipped into Spanish in her speech, ending with an exuberant, “Viva Mexico!”

Morishita was reportedly a cheerleader for the Washington, D.C. Commanders before becoming a chef. She took over the kitchen of the restaurant Perry’s in the city’s Adams Morgan neighborhood in 2022, bringing in a menu of Japanese comfort food, including a Japanese breakfast with grilled fish and traditional small dishes, as well as entrees like miso butter clams, and udon carbonara at dinner.

“This is my wildest American dream come true,” she said. And to the women in the crowd, she added: “I did it. You can do it. Everybody can do it.”

Everybody knows sushi and ramen, but Morishita said she brought the “cuisine Japanese moms have been cooking for centuries for their families. I hope I’m making all the Japanese moms proud.”

Wearing a kimono (with sneakers), Fujimoto said she emigrated from Tokyo 23 years ago at age 33. She had no kitchen experience, but started working in a restaurant because she enjoyed it.

“To all the food people in Portland, thank you for making me a baker,” she said in her speech.

Her tiny Norimoto Bakery has a small team of six and is known for “European baking, Japanese sensibility, Maine ingredients,” the website says simply. Offerings change weekly, based on seasonal ingredients