That chef on your next trip could be the next James Beard legend
Just like music, film, Broadway, fine art, sports and more, the culinary world has its own celebrities, A-listers, awards, lists and honors. In my view, it further validates the significance of food as equal parts cultural fingerprint, fine art genre and mainstay in pop culture. (Anyone else a Great British Bakeoff binger or Top Chef nerd?)
The popularity of food experiences and the elevation of its celebs also underscores the need and opportunity we have to relentlessly seek out and experience the work of great women chefs and cooks. Every bit of awareness built for their talents and skills helps all women in the culinary arts—an industry which, much like any other, still vastly needs to improve in the equity space.
There is a space here, dear traveler, for you to make a difference, too. Stick around.
Each June, one particular event is hailed as “the Oscars of the culinary world:” The 2024 James Beard Foundation Restaurant and Chef Awards will stream live Monday, June 10 on Eater.
The James Beard Awards are highly coveted, among the most prestigious U.S. honors in the culinary industry. And, like many organizations and brands, the Foundation has been more intentional in recent years, working toward stronger representation of women and people of color across its various levels of culinary recognition.
Of course, we’ll be tuning in tonight (with snacks, natch) and live tweeting/texting/posting our opinions as the evening unfolds (while additionally taking notes for future episodes).
This is close to my standard ritual for the Oscars themselves, along with the GRAMMYs, Emmys, Golden Globes, BAFTAs, SAGs, Tonys, and red carpet moments like the Costume Institute Benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in Manhattan—also known as the Met Gala.
Interestingly, this year’s first “Monday in May” (as the Met Gala is casually referenced in pop culture) was our last day filming on location in New Orleans. Exhausted, we spent the evening in our host’s gorgeous Jackson Square flat eating takeout fried chicken, beans and rice from Keys Deli and Quarter Deli while live texting and posting our various takes on the evening’s red carpet looks. The only winner I recall was that chicken from Keys, hit with a bit of Crystal hot sauce. Damn good.
Not pictured: The 2024 Met Gala red carpet. Jackson Square, New Orleans, May 2024.
Three nights earlier, we filmed and devoured a mind-blowing meal by Chef Nina Compton at Compère Lapin, her Warehouse District gem inside the Old No. 77 Hotel & Chandlery. Chef Compton, a St. Lucia immigrant who blends Caribbean, French, Creole and Italian ingredients and techniques, was named Best Chef of the South at the 2018 James Beard Awards, the first Black woman to win in her category and one of two first-ever Black women to make the finalists round, along with Chef Mashama Bailey of the Savannah, Ga. restaurant The Grey.
Visit Compère Lapin: James Beard winner Chef Nina Compton, New Orleans. Photo courtesy NOLA.com.
The Foundation has made some progress since 2018. In 2022, Chef Bailey became the first Black woman to win the James Beard Foundation’s Outstanding Chef award, its top honor. Plus, a variety of streaming shows like Netflix Chef’s Table have shone the spotlight on Beard-winning women chefs including Bailey, Chef Ann Kim (2019 Midwest Chef winner), Chef Nancy Silverton and more. But while it’s no longer what Anthony Bourdain publicly panned in 2011 (“Rarely can one see so many white people in one room”), more work is ahead and necessary.
So yes, big equity gaps in the culinary world. We know this, because we’re confronting big equity gaps across pretty much every other profession on this planet.
And the last thing we need are individuals checking out, thinking it’s a problem they can’t help solve.
Of course they can help solve it. I can. You can. We can. After all, we’re here because we love food, and travel, and art, right? In our own individual ways, we can help continue to encourage more women chef nominations and winners for Beard competitions, Michelin stars and more in the future.
So where do we start?
With our travel itineraries.
Change takes time: it happens one individual at a time, over time. And any change starts when that individual - like you or me - suddenly has two things:
An active dissatisfaction with the status quo, and
An intention to act—to think, try or do something completely different.
So, the first part. The WTAF Show, while in the service of helping women artists grow, is an expression of dissatisfaction with the status quo. Women want to see ourselves in food & travel shows: traveling, meeting, eating, drinking, and engaging with the chefs, artists and people in the places we visit.
The second part comes down to our choices. From day one, we’ve consciously designed women-first storyboards for every single episode, and even the earlier, pre-episode tests. We want viewers to seek out the artists and chefs we talk with when they take their own trips.
Think of how many people visit a diner, drive-in or dive because Guy Fieri once filmed there. It’s good for business.
Day 1, the test drive: The WTAF Show at Lat 14, Minneapolis, January 2021.
The first-ever filming done for this show’s concept took place in the final lingering months of the pandemic shutdown. Thankfully, Minneapolis is a mecca for exceptional women-driven restaurants and experiences (and that’s not just my bias talking) so I worked up the courage and contacted Chef Christina Nguyen, who owns Hola Arepa and my hands-down favorite local spot, the South Asian street food-forward Hai Hai. In turn, Chef Christina introduced me to Chef Ann Ahmed, and we filmed the early stab at this show at her excellent venue, Lat 14 (with South Asian cuisine influences that run along the 14th latitude).
Visit her Minneapolis restaurants: From the very first concept filming we did for The WTAF Show, featuring Chef Ann Ahmed at Lat 14, January 2021.
That day, Chef Ann shared news of plans to open a new spot, Khâluna, and tested out a couple of the new recipes (the sakoo, or tapioca mushroom dumplings, are crave worthy). She has since opened both Khâluna and Gai Noi to major acclaim, the latter of which landed on the New York Times 2023 Best Restaurants in America list.
Both Chef Ann and Chef Christina were James Beard semifinalists for Best Chef, Midwest in 2023 - and lo and behold, again for 2024.
What does Chef Emeril like to say? BAM!
While building the storyboard about a year later for the pilot episode, I had a few New York-based chefs in mind, including Chef Emma Bengtsson at the splendid two-star Aquavit (she graciously replied herself to decline). Chef Nasim Alikhani of Sofreh, her hot Persian spot in Prospect Heights, was recommended. I found a 2018 Michelin “Eating Off Duty” interview with Chef Nasim, had a phone call introduction and fell in love with her story: An immigrant of Iranian heritage who’s traveled the world, appreciates the design aesthetic in food as much as the other senses like taste and smell, and opened Sofreh—Persian for “set the table”—at age 60. Her sheer brilliance in both her dishes and the dining experience design caught the attention of a New York Times food critic its first week open, and the rest is history.
In the presence of greatness: Chef Nasim Alikhani during filming of our pilot episode, at Sofreh, Brooklyn, New York, February 2022.
My interview with Chef Nasim was only for a few short minutes, but her stories are so rich and dynamic. (Watch this clip of her describing her respect for the design of a Japanese breakfast.) And the food is singular: A table at Sofreh is worth the effort and wait, with fragrant dishes served family style that are so delicious they’re nearly impossible to stop eating.
(I also suggest - and hear me out - a bathroom break while there: pre-revolution Iranian cinema in black-and-white is projected on the wall for your entertainment while you take care of your biz.)
Chef Nasim was the 2023 James Beard Best Chef: New York semifinalist. And she, too, is a semifinalist again for 2024.
We have showcased top women chefs and establishments across all of our episodes, and it’s pretty damn cool to see them earning industry accolades like tonight. Not everyone in an episode is on the James Beard list, mind you, and it’s never going to be a requirement. We've met and eaten with chefs who are doing insane things with food and art, and they deserve to be seen and experienced. Who knows, maybe one day they’ll get the medal and stars and accolades. Maybe they’ll be able to earn a living from their work. Our genuine hope is for all of the above, with joy. So if anything we do plays the tiniest part in sending other women to their restaurants, or food stands, or trucks, or kitchens, and it helps them thrive long after we’re gone, then we’re doing our job.
A toast to James Beard women chefs: With Diana and cocktails at Compère Lapin, New Orleans, May 2024.
And as for you, dear traveler, make plans now to experience their work next time you’re in Brooklyn or Minneapolis. If healthy dissatisfaction with status quo feels like a stretch, try instead for a bit of curiosity: look around and see what women are doing with food and art when you travel. It’ll open your eyes to something different.
