CT chefs, restaurant are semifinalists for 2024 James Beard Foundation awards
Two Connecticut chefs and a top Peruvian restaurant have been nominated for James Beard Foundation awards, known as one of the most prominent honors in the culinary industry.
Renee Touponce of Oyster Club and the Port of Call in Mystic was nominated as a semifinalist for the Outstanding Chef award, and Coracora of West Hartford was nominated as a semifinalist for a third consecutive year in the Outstanding Restaurant category. David Standridge, executive chef at Mystic’s The Shipwright’s Daughter, was nominated as a semifinalist in the Best Chef: Northeast category.
Touponce, who was a finalist in the Best Chef: Northeast category in 2023, is the executive chef of Mystic’s Oyster Club restaurant and The Port of Call, a cocktail bar next door to the Water Street restaurant. She joined the 85th Day Food Community restaurant group in 2017, earning the executive role in 2021.
“With her inventive, locally-sourced, sustainable cuisine, she pays homage to the rich, coastal heritage of Southern New England, investigating the ingredients of her region of Mystic and surrounding communities while inventing and recreating the flavors of her youth with products she has access to,” her biography page notes.
The Outstanding Chef category features 20 chefs across the U.S., with nominees “who (set) high culinary standards and (have) served as a positive example for other food professionals while contributing positively to their broader community,” according to a press release.
“There’s a lot of heart and soul that goes into what we do as chefs. Each day, my kitchen team and I strive to create good food that connects with people,” Touponce said in a statement. “Getting recognized for that work is one of the greatest honors we can receive. Working in an industry with so many talented individuals, to be nominated for a James Beard Award, especially
in this category, is incredible, and I’m grateful for our community and the talented team I get to work with every day.”
Coracora was also a finalist for a 2023 Outstanding Restaurant award, with nominees “that (demonstrate) consistent excellence in food, atmosphere, hospitality, and operations while contributing positively to (their) broader community,” according to the Beard Foundation.
Head chef Macarena Ludena, whose parents Hector Ludena and Luisa Jimenez opened the restaurant in 2011, was also nominated previously in the Best Chef: Northeast category. Coracora has now been a staple for Peruvian cuisine in the Hartford area for more than a dozen years.
“It’s such an honor to be a semifinalist for the James Beard Award’s Outstanding Restaurant category,” said owner Grecia Ludena, Macarena’s sister, in a statement. My family and I are originally from a small town — Coracora — in the mountains of Peru with the dream of sharing our food, hospitality, and culture with our community in Connecticut. As a small, family-run restaurant, to be recognized for the third year in a row in this category is beyond what we ever could imagine, and we are so grateful.”“We are so excited! The entire team at Coracora puts in their best every
day, and so for us to receive this recognition from such a prestigious organization means the world,” Macarena Ludena said in a statement. “We’re proud to represent Connecticut and Peruvian cuisine again this year, and we’ll continue to put passion and love into everything we do. Congratulations to all the Semifinalists, in particular our fellow Connecticut chefs for their Semifinalist designations!”
David Standridge, who opened The Shipwright’s Daughter in 2020 with his wife, Kathleen, has an extensive culinary background, starting at the garde manger station at The Four Seasons in Houston and then helping open L’Atelier Joël Robuchon at New York’s Four Seasons, which earned two Michelin stars in 2009. He then worked for “cozy neighborhood institutions” like Market
Table and Cafe Clover, according to his biography on The Shipwright’s Daughter website, then joined NYC caterers Sonier & Castle.
“I always wanted to work on the coast in New England,” Standridge told Connecticut Magazine in 2022. “I stumbled on Mystic at a birthday party, saw the food scene, and got a job at The Whaler’s Inn (upstairs from Shipwright’s) in 2019. Bravo Bravo was here for 20 years, but we restored it down to the studs and developed the whole concept... I wanted to do something that reflected Mystic and fit into the environment, but a next generation, bringing world-class dining.”
This is Standridge’s first Beard nod, he said by phone Wednesday.
“It feels amazing,” he said. “At the end of the day, I don’t really put a lot of focus on recognition,
but if you’re trying to do something special, if you’re trying to do something that kind of has a bigger purpose, you need recognition. So it’s the only way to make it work. For us, it’s always been our goal to get noticed, but you never know if it’s going to happen. There are so many restaurants, so many people doing great, special things.”
The mission of the James Beard Awards is to “recognize exceptional talent and achievement in the culinary arts, hospitality, media, and broader food system, as well as a demonstrated commitment to racial and gender equity, community, sustainability,
and a culture where all can thrive,” according to a statement on the organization’s website.
The 2022 Awards were the first since changes were made as a result of an audit of the foundation’s policies and procedures, including establishing a code of ethics and an independent review process conducted by its volunteer ethics committee.
Finalists will be announced on April 3, and winners will be celebrated at the James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards Ceremony on June 10 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.