Mystic chefs finalists for Beard Foundation awards
Two Mystic chefs are finalists for the James Beard Foundation awards, one of the most prestigious honors in the culinary industry.
Renee Touponce, of Oyster Club and the Port of Call, is a finalist for the Outstanding Chef award and David Standridge, executive chef at The Shipwright’s Daughter, is a finalist in the Best Chef: Northeast category.
Touponce, who was a finalist in the Best Chef: Northeast category in 2023, is the executive chef at Oyster Club 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, which represents the entire United States, features five finalists “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 the Foundation.
“I’m feeling on top of the world. It’s incredible. I’m so thankful and proud,” Touponce said by phone Wednesday. “I’m extremely proud of the work of my teams and thankful for the support of our community, and our people, and it’s just a huge honor. It just feels so surreal right now.”
Touponce said she was “really ecstatic” for Standridge’s nomination as well.
“Mystic is doing good work right now,” she said.
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.
Standridge is one of five New England-based chefs nominated as finalists in the category, joining others from Cambridge, Massachusetts; Portland,
Maine; Burlington, Vermont and Providence, Rhode Island.
Standridge said Wednesday he was “overwhelmed with gratitude for the recognition.”
“I tell everyone that when the conversation comes up, that in order to do special things and to do things that we think are important, like ... sustainability and (supporting) fishermen and our whole mission, we need recognition,” he said. “Without recognition, you just can’t do it.
And so it’s an honor, but also it’s a needed one.”
Recognizing fellow finalist Touponce, whose restaurants are about a seven-minute walk from The Shipwright’s Daughter, Standridge said he expects Mystic to be “pretty crazy” this summer with the continued national spotlight on the village’s food scene.
West Hartford’s Coracora, a Peruvian restaurant, was also nominated as a semifinalist in the Outstanding Restaurant category in January. While the restaurant did not make the list of 2024 finalists, Coracora was an Outstanding Restaurant finalist in 2023 and head chef Macarena Ludena was nominated previously in the Best Chef: Northeast category.
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.
Winners will be celebrated at the James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards Ceremony on June 10 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.