Philly Scores Four James Beard Award Nominations for 2025
Out of 14 semifinalists, these are the four who are going to the big award ceremony this year.
A James Beard Foundation Award. / Photograph by Eliesa Johnson
We started with 14 James Beard Award nominees back in January — everyone from Yun Fuentes at Bolo and the upstairs bar at Kampar to Machine Shop bakery. And that was a pretty good showing for the semi-finals of the biggest, most competitive chef awards in the industry.
Historically speaking, Philly has always done remarkably well in the semis. As for getting locals into the list of finalists? Well, we haven’t always been so lucky. Last year we had exactly one finalist in the major chef and restaurant awards categories — Jesse Ito of Royal Sushi and Izakaya. We did, however, show up in other industry categories. Vietnam Restaurant won a James Beard America’s Classic Award, Muhammad Abdul-Hadi of Down North Pizza received an award for Industry Culture and Practices, and Christa Barfield of FarmerJawn got an award for Emerging Leadership. So Philly wasn’t entirely snubbed.
Today, the JBF announced its list of finalists for 2025, and Philly has snagged four spots — which, considering we’re talking about a nationwide competition traditionally dominated by the country’s big restaurant cities, is a huge turnaround.
So who’s going to the dance this year? I’m so glad you asked …
Emerging Chef: Phila Lorn from Mawn
Dude is literally named for this city. And Mawn is fantastic. “Emerging Chef” is always a weird kind of category (because at what point, exactly, does one technically emerge?), but Phila and Mawn have had a great year, so the JBF judges should just give him the award right now.
If you’ve been there, you already know how good of a pick this is. And if you haven’t, you should really add it to your list immediately.
And that’s that, folks. That’s your Philly team. The winners will be announced at a gala in Chicago on Monday, June 16th. And you can bet we’ll be watching to see whether or not our chefs can bring home the gold this year.
