San Francisco's Brandon Jew wins top chef honors
Honorees Grace Young, Martin Yan speak at ceremony
The resilience of America's restaurant industry was celebrated Monday night in Chicago as the James Beard Foundation Awards returned after a long pandemic hiatus.
“You popped up, you went outdoors, and you delivered,” Lori Lightfoot, mayor of the host city, said with an emphasis on the “delivered” as she congratulated the professionals in attendance.
One of the first awards of the night, Humanitarian of the Year, went to Grace Young, the cookbook author and culinary historian who chronicled the plight of the nation's Chinatowns — particularly New York and her hometown, San Francisco — when the restaurants and markets were forced to shut down early in 2020.
The struggle continues, she said in her acceptance speech, noting that on a recent trip through S.F. Chinatown, she counted 46 shuttered storefronts.
“They need our support now more than ever,” she added, imploring diners across the nation to do more. “Just show up. Go to your local Chinatown. Spend money.”
In the regional chefs category, Brandon Jew of Mister Jiu's restaurant — a standout in San Francisco's Chinatown — was honored as the Best Chef in California. He also won a Beard Award for his cookbook, written with Tienlon Ho, “Mister Jiu's in Chinatown: Recipes and Stories from the Birthplace of Chinese American Food” (Ten Speed Press).
The recognition, Jew said, shows that “Chinese food deserves to be held in as high esteem as any other cuisine.”
He thanked his staff for rising to the occasion during the challenging COVID era and paid tribute to those he called his S.F. mentors: Judy Rodgers, Michael Tusk and his grandparents.
Jew was one of five finalists for the James Beard Foundation honor. The others were James Syhabout of Commis in Oakland, Pim Techamuanvivit of Nari in San Francisco, Bryant Ng of Cassia restaurant in Santa Monica and Sarintip “Jazz” Singsanong of Jitlada in Los Angeles.
Previously announced Bay Area honors included an Emerging Leadership award for Understory, a worker-cooperative restaurant, bar and commercial kitchen in Oakland; the Craig Claiborne Distinguished Restaurant Review Award to Soleil Ho of the San Francisco Chronicle; and a posthumous Cookbook Hall of Fame award for “The Zuni Café Cookbook: A Compendium of Recipes and Cooking Lessons from San Francisco's Beloved Restaurant” by Judy Rodgers (W.W. Norton & Co).
Another highlight came late in Monday's ceremony when legendary Bay Area chef Martin Yan accepted his previously announced Lifetime Achievement Award.
After a video tribute that told Yan's decades-long success story, he was invited to the stage to take a bow and take the microphone.
The ever-exuberant Yan reminisced about his early years on TV as one of the few cooking show hosts (along with Julia Child and the Galloping Gourmet); of inspiring others to share the joy of cooking; of the pleasure he derives from his audience and fans.
He then turned to talking about the tens of thousands of professional cooks around the world who are sweating as they toil in commercial kitchens for long hours and only modest pay. He grabbed the medallion from around his neck and held it up: “This one is for you.”
These were the first Beards since 2019. The awards had gone on hiatus in 2020 and 2021, with the foundation citing the pandemic-caused disruption to the industry and facing criticism about lack of inclusion. In the interim, the group pledged to work toward its stated objectives to “remove any systemic bias, increase the diversity of the pool of candidates, maintain relevance, and align the awards more outwardly with the foundation's values of equity, equality, sustainability, and excellence for the restaurant industry.”
During that time, the foundation established a code of ethics as a guideline for all entrants, semifinalists and nominees, as well as its voting body. An independent volunteer ethics committee was set up to provide oversight.
DETAILS >> Find the full list of winners on the James Beard Foundation website, www.jamesbeard.org.