Clik here to view.
James Beard Foundation Award winner Bruce Sherman, chef/owner of North Pond in Chicago, promotes sustainable, seasonal cooking, such as this egg with asparagus and morel ragout.
The annual James Beard Foundation Awards reward the best in cooking with medals and recognition. We’re lucky enough to know more than a few chefs, and we’re eager to know the best places to eat, so we pay attention to the awards, which take place every May at Lincoln Center in New York City. This year was especially exciting, because so many winners were chefs who promote sustainable, healthful, seasonal cooking.
Bruce Sherman, chef/owner of Chicago’s North Pond Restaurant, has been quietly doing good work (no TV shows or big splashy parties) for years, so it was nice to see him take home the Best Chef: Great Lakes. He works with Chefs Collaborative to promote local farms, and he added a dollar to the price of each bottle of wine in his restaurant to go to charity, a donation that is matched with an additional dollar from the restaurant’s revenue.
If Chicago’s not in your immediate travel plans, then sign up for Sherman’s newsletters. (Click on “news” here.) You’ll learn more about how to prepare seasonal and sustainable items. It’s not quite like having the food cooked for you — and the dishes cleaned up after — but it’s a pretty tasty second.
The first time we met Gramercy Tavern’s Michael Anthony, a big supporter of NYC farmers markets, he spent half an hour telling us about the funky, bright, fresh root vegetables he’d set on a gala table. He puts the same joy and dedication into his menus and won the Best Chef category for New York City. Gramercy Tavern offers gorgeous tasting menus and a la carte menus; if you go a la carte, save room for Nancy Olson’s desserts.
Right across the river, in Hoboken, NJ, Maricel Presilla of Cucharamama took the mid-Atlantic honors. Presilla, a culinary historian, has a Ph.D. in history from NYU, and her interests lie in Latin America and Spain, plus she’s written a book on chocolate. Chucharamama dishes include Choritos (Mejillones) en Salsa “Cuzqueña”: mussels in a spicy sauce of panca peppers, garlic, cilantro and Peruvian dark beer, as well as Arepas de Choclo — fresh corn cake with salmon roe and Venezuelan crème fraîche — from Presilla’s wood-burning oven.
Best Chef: Northwest went to Matt Dillon of Sitka & Spruce in Seattle, where Dillon serves seasonal and regional ingredients and makes it happily communal, with an open kitchen and a long table — but you can grab some private space, if you prefer. The fresh ingredients, with flavors that really pop, are from The Old Chaser Farm, a small farm on Vashon Island, where you’ll find everything from honeybees to sheep. The Monday nights of Mexican fare are popular with locals.
Hugh Acheson got double honors this year. His cookbook, A New Turn in the South: Southern Flavors Reinvented for Your Kitchen (Clarkson Potter, 2011), won the James Beard Foundation Book Award for American Cooking. Three nights later, he was one of two chefs to take Best Chef: Southeast. At 5 & 10, in Athens, GA, Acheson offers local ingredients for brunch, dinner, snackies (marinated white anchovies with grapefruit, housemade pickles, etc.) and cheese with accompaniments. Acheson shared his recipe for salmon with marinated vegetables and salmoriglio sauce with VIVmag; the salmon pairs beautifully with spring vegetables currently available and the simple Italian lime and herb salmoriglio sauce.
Ties are rare, but there was one this year. Linton Hopkins, of Restaurant Eugene, in Atlanta was the other Southeast winner.
Still hungry? Regional Best Chef awards went to Tory Miller of L’Etoile, in Madison, WI; Tim Cushman of Boston’s O Ya; Chris Hastings of the Hot and Hot Fish Club in Birmingham, AL; Paul Qui of Uchiko in Austin, TX; and Matt Molina, of Osteria Mozza in Los Angeles.
Outstanding Restaurant went to Boulevard in San Francisco, and Rising Star Chef of the Year to Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milk Bar in New York City. Mindy Segal, of Mindy’s HotChocolate in Chicago, won Outstanding Pastry Chef. Outstanding Chef went to Daniel Humm, of New York City’s Eleven Madison Park.
Have you had the chance to eat any fare prepared by the 2012 James Beard Foundation chef winners?
Photo credit: Courtesy North Pond