The real winners of this year's James Beard Awards were small cities and towns, which boxed out places like New York and San Francisco. It’s just one example of the way once-ignored places are taking center stage.
Instead, award after award went to chefs and restaurants located outside major metropolises. In Charlestown, Rhode Island, Sly Fox Den Too’s Sherry Pocknett won Best Chef: Northeast, becoming the first Indigenous woman to win a James Beard. Andrew Black took home Oklahoma’s second-ever James Beard award for his work at Grey Sweater in Oklahoma City. And Kris Komori of Kin took Best Chef: Mountain, the first time an Idaho restaurant has won.
Watching chefs outside big cities sweep the awards made one thing crystal clear: Restaurants opening in smaller areas are redefining what a destination food city looks like. Commentators Nilou Motamed and Francis Lam seemed to notice this trend as well. "There are so many parts of the country that have not won Beard awards [before this]—smaller cities and towns where in the past it was hard to get the national attention,” Lam said as Andrew Black took the stage to accept his award. In his speech Black made sure to mention how vital his community in Oklahoma City had been to his restaurant’s success—particularly as it struggled during COVID.
Big cities will always be destinations for dining, but this year's James Beard Awards prove that the national dining scene is changing in a major way. As chefs continue to open up new bakeries, bars, and restaurants outside of what are traditionally considered “food cities,” the reality of destination dining is seeing a huge shift.
In some ways it’s not surprising that restaurants in smaller cities and towns are receiving this acknowledgement while larger cities are mostly boxed out. Bon Appétit restaurant editor Elazar Sontag recently lamented the fact that San Francisco’s restaurant scene, and not because of a lack of creative chefs. The city’s dining scene has become homogeneous, due in large part to the risk-averse investors who put their money behind tried-and-true safe-bet restaurants run by big name chefs.
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