Here Are the 2025 James Beard Restaurant Award Winners

Toni Tipton-Martin, Jungsik Yim and the restaurateurs behind Le Veau d’Or were among the top honorees.

By Julia Moskin

June 16, 2025

The James Beard Foundation gave out its annual culinary awards Monday night in Chicago, with the chefs and co-hosts Andrew Zimmern and Nyesha Arrington handing out gold medals to chefs, restaurateurs, bakers and bartenders from across the United States.

To reflect the growing influence of cocktail and bar culture, three new awards were given out this year: best new bar, outstanding professional in beverage service and outstanding professional in cocktail service.

New York City restaurants won three of the six major national awards: outstanding chef (Jungsik Yim of Jungsik), outstanding hospitality (Atomix) and outstanding restaurateur (Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr of Frenchette, Le Rock and Le Veau d’Or).

It was the 35th edition of the black-tie gala, which has been transformed from a Monday-night-only event (to allow chefs to squeeze in a trip when restaurants are traditionally closed) to a full weekend of panels and pop-ups. (Food media professionals like writers, directors, podcasters and influencers received their awards at a ceremony on Saturday.)

The awards program was suspended in 2020 and 2021 as the industry responded to the pandemic, and as the foundation tried to incorporate rapidly evolving ideas about race, gender, privilege and workers’ rights. Since then, priorities have shifted away from the traditional guest experience — food, service and décor — and toward evaluating chefs and restaurants as employers, community members and professional leaders.

And the range of awards keeps expanding. To the existing “humanitarian” title, this year the foundation added “impact” awards for people who work toward a more “equitable, sustainable and economically viable” food system, such as Angie Craig, a U.S. representative from Minnesota and a member of the House Committee on Agriculture, and Anthony Edwards Jr., a co-founder of EatOkra, a hospitality platform for Black-owned food businesses.

The writer and historian Toni Tipton-Martin, who has documented Black food traditions in books like “A Taste of Heritage,” “Jubilee” and “The Jemima Code,” won the lifetime achievement award for her work. Chad Houser, who won the humanitarian award for his Dallas restaurant, Cafe Momentum, which is staffed by young people affected by the juvenile justice system, said of the recognition, “It’s a sign that the world is changing.”

National Awards

Outstanding Chef

Jungsik Yim, Jungsik, New York

Outstanding Restaurant

Frasca Food and Wine, Boulder, Colo.

Outstanding Restaurateur

Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr, Frenchette, Le Rock, Le Veau d’Or, New York

Best New Restaurant

Bûcheron, Minneapolis

Emerging Chef

Phila Lorn, Mawn, Philadelphia

Outstanding Hospitality

Atomix, New York

Outstanding Bakery

Jinju Patisserie, Portland, Ore.

Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker

Cat Cox, Country Bird Bakery, Tulsa, Okla.

Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program

Charleston, Baltimore

Outstanding Bar

Kumiko, Chicago

Best New Bar (New)

Identidad Cocktail Bar, San Juan, P.R.

Outstanding Professional in Beverage Service (New)

Arjav Ezekiel, Birdie’s, Austin, Texas

Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service (New)

Ignacio Jimenez, Superbueno, New York

Regional Awards

Best Chef: New York State

Vijay Kumar, Semma, New York

Best Chef: California

Jon Yao, Kato, Los Angeles

Best Chef: Great Lakes (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio)

Noah Sandoval, Oriole, Chicago

Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic (Washington, D.C., Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia)

Carlos Delgado, Causa and Amazonia, Washington

Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific (Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington)

Timothy Wastell, Antica Terra, Amity, Ore.

Best Chef: Midwest (Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin)

Karyn Tomlinson, Myriel, St. Paul, Minn.

Best Chef: Mountain (Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming)

Salvador Alamilla, Amano, Caldwell, Idaho

Best Chef: Northeast (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont)

Skye Haneul Kim, Gift Horse, Providence, R.I.

Best Chef: Southeast (Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia.)

Jake Howell, Peninsula, Nashville

Best Chef: South (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Puerto Rico)

Nando Chang, Itamae AO, Miami

Best Chef: Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma)

Yotaka Martin, Lom Wong, Phoenix

Best Chef: Texas

Thomas Bille, Belly of the Beast, Spring, Texas

Humanitarian of the Year

Chad Houser, Cafe Momentum, Dallas

Lifetime Achievement Award

Toni Tipton-Martin

A correction was made on

June 17, 2025

An earlier version of this article misstated the title of one of Toni Tipton-Martin’s books. It is “A Taste of Heritage,” not “Heritage.”

Read the full article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/dining/james-beard-awards-winners.html