Beard Weekend Festivities Embrace Inclusion, Celebrate Community
From the media awards to the restaurant and chef ceremony and so much in between, everything associated with the James Beard Foundation’s signature events showcased a welcoming atmosphere for all.
Here’s the list of all the 2024 Restaurant and Chef James Beard Foundation Award winners. Right before the weekend’s festivities, organizers told the media that this year’s events sold out (also the media awards, of which I served as a judge for the second year in a row) and the waiting lists were extremely long. I believe them.
There was an energy to the city I had never experienced before during Beard weekend. I’m going to call that energy inclusivity. It’s been building for the past few years. When the awards first came to Chicago almost 10 years ago in 2015, after being held in New York since its inception in 1991, it felt and looked much different. While the awards ceremonies continue to honor the best of the best in America’s culinary world, they’ve expanded their outlook of what exactly that means.
That includes, of course, who gets to celebrate. On media night, immigrants, first-generation American citizens and those from underserved communities got their chance to shine on the podium. Most notably, Randy Lau (“Made with Lau”) brought his parents up on the stage and had them wearing his medals during his two acceptance speeches for Instructional Visual Media and Emerging Voice. KJ Kearney
of Black Food Fridays fame kept it real and thanked his “haters” for motivating him to work harder to serve his culture and community. He won for the Social Media Account category. And D. Watkins shook up the Beverage category with a Salon piece on sobriety and the growing nonalcoholic movement.
The chef and restaurant awards ceremony mirrored the media awards with its message of inclusion. Dakar NOLA, a Senegalese-inspired eatery based in New Orleans, won Best New Restaurant. Masako Morishita of Perry's in Washington, D.C., picked up the Emerging Chef award. Atsuko Fujimoto from Norimoto Bakery in Portland, Maine, nabbed the Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker accolades. Charlie Mitchell, from Clover Hill in Brooklyn, won Best Chef: New York State. And Gregory Gourdet from kann in Portland, Oregon, took home the Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific medal. This was his third Beard award.
Parties, brunches, panel discussions and other important events such as the Asian American Culinary Conference also showcased the most diverse culinary crowd ever to show up for the Beard weekend. And what really stood out is that revelers proudly wore traditional cultural attire, from Navajo formal clothing to Indian saris to West African dresses. Here are some of my favorite moments from Beard festivities.
Great recap and fantastic pictures! ❤️