Best in Chow

On May 7, the nation’s top cooks will trade their chef whites for black tie and stroll down a 30-foot red carpet at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall. They’ll be taking the night off from the kitchen to attend the 20th annual James Beard Awards — the culinary Oscars, complete with glamour, rivalries, and after-parties.The James Beard Foundation, a nonprofit based in New York, boasts a mission of “celebrating, preserving, and nurturing America’s culinary heritage and diversity.” It provides culinary-school scholarships, and hosts dinners, workshops, and benefits, as well as the annual awards ceremony. It is the only national organization of its kind, meaning it has even less competition than the Academy Awards. The restaurant and chef awards draw the most attention. Who will be anointed best chef in New York City? Or outstanding restaurant? (Last year’s winners were Dan Barber of Blue Hill and Thomas Keller at the French Laundry.)But awards are given in 62 categories, including international cookbook, local television food show, and outstanding restaurant design. The Midtown brasserie La Grenouille, which has been open for 44 years, is nominated for outstanding service for the second year in a row. “I don’t know why we were nominated,” the restaurant’s owner, Charles Masson, said recently, adding that he has never participated in a Beard Foundation event. “But of course it’s an honor and great to be recognized.”To win the award for outstanding service, a restaurant must have been open for at least five years. “It may not be the trendiest or the latest place,” the restaurant critic and executive food and wine editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, Michael Bauer, said recently from the newspaper’s test kitchen. Mr. Bauer has been on the Beard Foundation’s restaurant committee for about 10 years, the last two as chairman. “The places that win are consistent” in displaying high standards of hospitality and service. Most of the awards go to chefs, but this award recognizes frontof-the-house employees such as hosts, waiters, and managers and is given to the restaurant’s owner instead of the chef. Mr. Masson said he views it as an acknowledgment of all the staff. “Part of the theater of the restaurant is finishing what the kitchen started,” he said.Upon last year’s nomination, Mr. Masson received an onslaught of calls, letters, and reservations from across the country. “When I got it last year, I didn’t know what to do,” he said. He tried to respond to everything, giving all the queries the same personal attention as the daily floral arrangements or the welcoming of guests to the restaurant. But it proved to be too taxing, and recently he hired a publicist to deal with the responses. “We’re going to have to figure out a strategy to try and return the favor,” he said.In James Beard Award language, “outstanding” denotes a national title, meaning no. 1 one in the country. Like the Academy Awards, the voting process can appear mysterious. Given the ego of most celebrity chefs, the announcement of the nominees often raises more questions than it answers: “My restaurant is better than his, so why wasn’t I nominated?”“People think it’s a cabal that gets together to anoint someone,” Mr. Bauer said. He oversees the 17-member committee made up of journalist, critics, and industry leaders from all over the country. To combat conflicts of interest, the committee has no chefs or restaurateurs. “We hope to take the popularity factor out,” Mr. Bauer said.The award process begins in November with a public call for nominations. This year, the paper ballots were replaced by online voting for the first time. “I think online made it more democratic,” the foundation’s president, Susan Ungaro, said recently in her sunny office on the top floor of the James Beard House in Greenwich Village. “Normally we get a few thousand, but this year we got more than 8,000.”The results are tabulated by the independent accounting firm Lutz & Carr, and then culled to 20 contenders for each award by the committee. A pool of 400 judges composed of past winners, press representatives, and industry leaders then votes online to select the final five nominees.“We try to get people who eat out a lot,” Mr. Bauer said, “because you have to have eaten in the restaurant to vote for it.” This voting requirement helps explain why New York City always dominates the awards. Four of the five contenders for Outstanding Restaurateur this year have restaurants in New York: Thomas Keller, Keith McNally, Drew Nieporent, and Jean-Georges Vongerichten. (Richard Melman of the Chicago-based company Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises is the only nominee without a New York restaurant.) Three of the six nominees for Best New Restaurant are in New York: A Voce, L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, and Momofuku Ssäm Bar. “New York is bigger, has a stronger reputation, and more people get to New York than any other city,” Mr. Bauer said. “If you’re in Kansas City, it takes a lot of years for people to get to you.”“We’re doing our best to demystify things,” Ms. Ungaro said. But still many do not read the fine print. In the regional awards, chefs must have been in that region for a minimum of three years, which helps explain why recent arrivals like Joël Robuchon and Gordon Ramsay are absent from the nominee list for best chef in New York. They will be eligible in 2009 and 2010, respectively. For the national awards, restaurants must be in business for at least 10 years. Daniel, for instance, is surely one of the best tables in the country, but it has been open only nine years.As for La Grenouille, it is competing against Blackberry Farm (Walland, Tenn.), Canlis (Seattle), Terra (St. Helena, Calif.) and Tru (Chicago). Is it really the best service in the country? According to Mr. Bauer, “The collective wisdom says it is.” Mr. Masson will be in tuxedo Monday evening waiting to find out.For tickets and additional information, go to www.jamesbeard.org.

Best in Chow

Best in Chow

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