Last month, Omar Flores (Casa Rubia), Teiichi Sakurai (Tei-An), John Tesar (Knife), and David Uygur (Lucia) were named semi-finalists for this year’s James Beard Award’s Best Chef Southwest category. As I mentioned (and then developed further in a post), I was thrilled to see Maggie Huff of FT33 nominated in the category of Outstanding Pastry Chef. And anyone who has been to Stephan Pyles’ Flora Street Café gave a knowing smile to know that it was nominated for Best New Restaurant.
Having just sat through the one-hour-long streaming announcement, I can say that none—none!—are moving on to the next stage. Obviously, it’s an outrage.
Other Best Chef Southwest contenders from Texas still in the running are:
- Bryce Gilmore of Barley Swine, Austin
- Steve McHugh of Cured, San Antonio
- Hugo Ortega of Hugo’s, Houston
- Jianyun Ye of Mala Sichuan Bistro, Houston
Winners will be announced at the awards ceremony May 1, 2017.
Meanwhile, we will be busy reservation-bombing Lucia, ordering chiboust, and watching lamps flounce up and down in the Arts District. And I’ll make a couple of shameless plugs for reads, amongst the journalism nominees:
“Farm to Fable,” an important series by Laura Reiley for the Tampa Bay Times
“Smoke Signals,” a piece on the artfulness of wood-fired cooking by Julia Kramer for Bon Appetit
“Sonoko Dreams of Soba,” by Francis Lam for Saveur, which is nominated both for its content and the quality of its writing
