8 James Beard semifinalist nods for Twin Cities talent

A day after the Academy Award nominations, the Twin Cities food world was abuzz over a strong showing in its own version of the Oscars: the Beards.

Eight Twin Cities-area chefs and restaurants are semifinalists for the 2024 James Beard Foundation Awards.

The high-profile culinary awards, widely viewed as the industry’s highest honors, recognize and celebrate excellence in restaurants and food media. The restaurant awards fall into 10 national categories and 12 regional categories. This year, several local representatives are getting nods in national categories:

In the Outstanding Chef category: Daniel del Prado for Porzana, Minneapolis; Best New Restaurant: Oro by Nixta, Minneapolis; Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker: Marc Heu of Marc Heu Pâtisserie Paris, St. Paul; and Outstanding Bar: Meteor, Minneapolis.

In the Best Chef: Midwest category, four are being recognized: Ann Ahmed for Khâluna, Minneapolis; Christina Nguyen for Hai Hai, Minneapolis; Karyn Tomlinson for Myriel, St. Paul; and Lisa Carlson and Carrie Summer of Chef Shack, Bay City, Wis.

Prolific chef and restaurateur del Prado faces 19 other chefs from around the country on the long list for Outstanding Chef. He was in the middle of a yoga class when he got the news. “I got like 100 texts,” he said. “I don’t think it’s just Porzana. It’s everything that my team does every day. I stand behind all of them.”

Since opening in summer 2023, the ambitious Argentine steakhouse has invigorated a corner of the North Loop where the famed Bachelor Farmer restaurant once stood.

Del Prado was previously a semifinalist for a regional award in 2020 and 2019 for his restaurant Martina.

The other three national semifinalists from the Twin Cities are newcomers to the Beards.

“I always hoped that when we were ready, I knew that I wanted to nominate Marc, and I felt like this was the year to do it,” said Gaosong Heu, who co-owns Marc Heu Pâtisserie Paris with her husband. “His excellence, his dedication to his community, his team, and the impact he wants to make not only as a chef but also as a Hmong American and Hmong French chef, if he were to be chosen, it would be a great opportunity for our Hmong community.”

The bakery expanded last year from a small counter in Frogtown to a full-fledged cafe at Selby and Dale. Heu grew up in French Guiana and left a medical career to pursue the art of laminating dough, with few Asian role models in the French pastry world. He and his wife first launched the bakery in 2019 with only $200.

“It’s been a huge adventure and it’s just crazy that when I look at myself as a little boy from the jungle, I guess that little boy was able to do something when they told him he’s not good enough,” Marc Heu said.

But Heu didn’t have much time to dwell on the honor. “I have a batch of croissant dough I have to laminate,” he said.

Oro by Nixta is a semifinalist for the competitive Best New Restaurant category, which Owamni won in 2022, and was the Star Tribune’s 2023 Restaurant of the Year. In his review, Jon Cheng praised how chef Gustavo Romero’s “artwork celebrates the tapestry of Mexican cultural heritage” via his signature tortillas, for which he uses nixtamalized corn. “We ate quietly, marveling at the way the tortillas draped like thick, expensive fabric; the way they cradled their delicious fillings,” Cheng wrote.

On the day of the announcement, Romero said he was “overwhelmed from the support and love of the community and friends and colleagues. We hope that it means that we continue to be busy, continue to have the opportunity to work and grow and keep showing the food that we want to show to people.”

“Obviously, we are a pretty small joint,” added Nixta co-owner Kate Romero. “We started with a small dream and maybe it means that no dream is too crazy, and that they can grow into really big things from small seeds — like corn.”

Robb Jones, owner of Meteor, had just woken up after a night of celebration (and karaoke) with his staff when he received word that the bar had been recognized as one of the top in the country. “Holy [expletive]!”he said. “It’s overwhelming.”

Jones, who previously ran beverage programs for high-profile restaurants, opened the Near North dive bar in late 2019, and despite pandemic interruptions, it quickly became a late-night industry hot spot.

Looking through the list of the other 19 semifinalists, Jones said, he was struck by how small his bar and crew are in comparison. “The coolest part of this is that my team did this. I always say that we’re nowhere near anything else. If someone walks into this bar, it’s on purpose. And someone came here and thought we were cool. My team took care of them.”

The Best Chef: Midwest award recognizes chefs for their culinary skills and leadership abilities as well as their community contributions. It encompasses Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. And three of this year’s Minnesota semifinalists were also semifinalists last year.

Karyn Tomlinson, chef/owner of Myriel, was caught off guard by the Wednesday morning announcement. “Oh, I didn’t know!” she said.

This is her third time as a semifinalist, twice for Myriel and once for her work at the now-shuttered Corner Table. “It does make a difference in the business and it is certainly an encouragement to my staff, who work so hard every day to execute our vision with excellence and grace,” she said.

Tomlinson opened Myriel during the pandemic and grew the business from takeout-only to an intimate eatery in St. Paul’s quiet Mac-Groveland neighborhood. The three-star restaurant won accolades for Tomlinson’s “whole-hog and farm-to-table narrative.”

“I’m grateful,” she said.

Summer, a pastry chef who co-owns the seasonal Chef Shack with her spouse, chef Carlson, was “ecstatic” when she heard the news.

Chef Shack was a semifinalist in 2017 and 2018. Chef Shack traces its origin to a doughnut stand at the Mill City Farmers Market. It became a food truck trailblazer before launching a weekends-only multicourse tasting experience in a homey dining room at the edge of Lake Pepin, just south of Red Wing. The couple travel during the off season, and create new menus influenced by their adventures when they return.

“Lisa is in Peru and I just got off the phone with her. She was painting a picture and I go, ‘Are you sitting down?’ She’s thrilled,” Summer said. “It’s a huge recognition and it’s remarkable for business, for all of us who push to do good work, push to do sustainable purchasing and try to make ends meet — this is amazing.”

Ahmed was a semifinalist for Khâluna in 2023. The restaurant, which opened in 2021, garnered three stars from the Star Tribune for “food that delivers on both exclusivity and pleasure — the kind that justifies multiple flights across continents and time zones.” Ahmed was not immediately available for comment; the chef and restaurateur, who also owns Gai Noi and Lat 14, is in Laos after cooking at an exclusive dinner at the Rosewood Luang Prabang.

Nguyen was working out this morning when she realized she had 14 missed calls. “Usually, that means something bad,” she said, “but luckily, this was the opposite of that.”

Nguyen was a semifinalist for Hai Hai four previous times; in 2019 and 2020, she moved on in the competition to become a finalist. When Hai Hai opened in 2018, the Star Tribune gave it three-and-a-half stars, calling it “one of those charmed restaurants where nearly every one of its well-engineered components fosters a single emotion: happiness.”

“It especially means so much being a restaurant that’s been open for six years,” said Nguyen. “But the emotion — the thrill ... it just means a lot to be recognized for us and our team.”

The semifinalist list will be trimmed further in April, when the James Beard Foundation releases its list of nominees. Last year was the first time in two decades that no Minnesota chefs were recognized in the final list in the Best Chef: Midwest category. Established in 1990, the James Beard Awards are often described as the Oscars of the food world. The 2024 awards ceremony will take place in Chicago on June 10.

For a complete list of the semifinalists, go to jamesbeard.org.