James Beard Finalists announced

I posted last month about the James Beard Award semi-finalists being announced, including 13 nominations for DC-area restaurants and chefs. Well, the finalists were announced today and five chefs are left:

Outstanding Chef: José Andrés of Minibar

Rising Star Chef of the Year: Jonny Monis of Komi

Best Chef Mid-Atlantic:

Cathal Armstrong of Restaurant Eve

Peter Pastan of Obelisk

Vikram Sunderam of Rasika

Sadly, neither of the restaurants nominated for best restaurant in America made the final cut (Kinkead's and Vidalia), both certainly were worthy nominees. Fortunately, however, the James Beard Awards also recognizes people working in other parts of the food industry, including journalists, broadcast media hosts, writers and more. 

From there Washington DC received three more nominations, all to the Washington Post. Food critic Tom Sietsema is nominated for two awards including Best Newspaper Feature Writing About Restaurants/chefs and for Best Restaurant Reviews. Moreover, Joe Yonan of the Washington Post was nominated for the Best Newspaper Food Section award. If it wasn't obvious before, clearly we've got a pretty incredible group of food writers here in DC!