Bolete earns its biggest honor to date
Salisbury Township establishment 1 of 20 semifinalists for James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant
Salisbury Township’s Bolete was named a semi-finalist for Outstanding Restaurant, one of only 20 from across the country.
Salisbury Township’s Bolete has just earned its highest honor to date: A James Beard nomination.
The restaurant was named a semifinalist for Outstanding Restaurant, one of only 20 from across the country. Bolete was also one of two from Pennsylvania to be nominated for the award — the other being Zahav in Philadelphia.
The semifinalists for restaurants and chef awards were announced Wednesday by the James Beard Foundation. Finalists will be announced March 27 and the winners will be announced at the 29th annual James Beard Awards on April 26 in New York City. No other Lehigh Valley restaurant or chef appears on the lists of nominees.
The James Beard Awards are the food and hospitality industry’s highest achievements, akin to the Academy Awards. Nominees for Outstanding Restaurant must demonstrate consistent excellence in food, atmosphere, service and operations, and be in business for 10 or more consecutive years.
“We are honored and excited that we have been selected and stand among these incredible restaurants,” the restaurant’s owners, Lee Chizmar and Erin Shea, said in a prepared statement. “This nod is for our entire restaurant family and the community we serve who help to make Bolete what it is every day for the past 11 years.”
Bolete is the most acclaimed restaurant in the Lehigh Valley, consistently beating out restaurants in major cities for top awards. The farm-to-table finedining restaurant opened in 2007 in 200-year-old building that was once a stagecoach inn.
The restaurant has a long list of awards including topping numerous lists by OpenTable, a leading online dining reservation list, as well as Conde Nast Traveler.
The name of the restaurant (pronounced bo-LEET) is Latin for mushroom, one of chef Chizmar’s favorite ingredients.
In 2015, Chizmar was semifinalist for a James Beard Award for best chef, mid-Atlantic. He was one of 20 chefs from the mid-Atlantic region (and the only one from the Lehigh Valley) to earn that nomination.
“Every chef spends his whole life working for this type of recognition,” Chizmar said in a 2015 interview about the nomination. “This is what every chef aspires to. Even to make the long list is a dream come true.”
Bolete’s focus is on presenting diners with the freshest, seasonal ingredients in an evolving menu. Chizmar lets the seasons and the ingredients dictate his changing menus, ensuring the ingredients are at peak freshness and flavor.
Chizmar and Shea also own Mister Lee’s Noodles, a ramen bar in the Easton Public Market. Their third restaurant operation, Silvershell Counter + Kitchen, a New England-style clam bar, is slated to open in April in the Easton Public Market.
To see the full list of Beard Awards: www.jamesbeard.org/ awards