A little over a month ago, we tipped you off to the 2008 James Beard Awards Long List, and well the time has come: the long list is now a short list. This morning the official list of nominees was released. There are 52 categories including cookbooks, journalism articles, television, radio, web, restaurant design, and most importantly the restaurants and chefs themselves.
To discover some of the biggest award nominees, just read more
The first round of nominees for the 2008 James Beard Awards have just been announced. Well not really, the judges were sent the "long list" earlier today, and the folks at Grub Street managed to get their grubby little hands on a copy.
The list is the best of the best in the US, and features quite a broad range. The categories are Restaurateur, Best Regional Chef (separate categories for each region), Pastry Chef, Rising Star Chef, Chef, Restaurant, Service, Wine Service, Wine & Spirits Professional, and Best New Restaurant.
It's interesting to me that New York City gets its own category, but since it's such a hot bed of culinary delights, I guess it's only fair to the rest of the Northeast. The lists definitely run the gamut of flavors and styles. There are some obvious names — like Mario Batali, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and Wolfgang Puck — but there are some newcomers as well. Here at Sugar HQ, we're excited by the inclusion of several of our new fave eateries (SPQR and Spruce in San Francisco).
If you're curious, check out the entire long list of nominees. It's interesting to note that the cookbooks, newspaper articles, webcasts/radio, and restaurant design are not on this list. Those will surely be announced in the weeks to come, and when they do, we'll definitely let you know!
So, were any of your favorite chefs or restaurants on the long list? Do you feel that your region is well represented?
Last night the who's who of the food world all came out for the James Beard Foundation Awards. If you're not sure what that is, let me just say that it's sort of like the Oscars of the food world. They give awards to several categories of cookbooks, journalism, chefs, media, and more (including humanitarian & lifetime achievement awards). The "They" is a group of Awards Committees consisting of food-industry professionals. The judges are chosen by the committees and choose the winners by reviewing all entries and voting via secret ballot. Oh and just to be fair, if you're a judge, you can't enter to win in that category.
So now that all the rules and regulations are spelled out let's talk about the winners. The big "star" of the night was David Chang (pictured) of Momofuku in New York who won the award for Rising Star Chef of Year. Also noteworthy was Traci Des Jardins of Rubicon here in San Francisco, she was one of the few female chefs to win anything (she won the Pacific regional award for Best Chef).
For the list of winners and a gallery of folks on the red carpet, including: Martha Stewart, Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi with NY's Daniel Boulud, Thomas Keller, Salman Rushdie and Bobby Flay (who was inducted into the Who's Who of Food & Beverage in America), read more
