Three Pittsburgh-based chefs and one local restaurant are semifinalists for the annual James Beard Foundation Award, which recognizes the best of the best in the restaurant industry.
Released on Wednesday, the James Beard semifinalists for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic, which includes D.C. , Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia and Pennsylvania, named Kate Lasky and Tomasz Skowronski and Wei Zhu of Pittsburgh among over 20 other names.
Lasky and Skowronski are with Apteka, a Central and Eastern European restaurant right between Bloomfield and Lawrenceville on Penn Avenue.
According to Apteka’s website, “This is a vegetable restaurant. Everything is vegan.”
Zhu is the chef and owner of Chengdu Gourmet on Forward Avenue in Squirrel Hill.
Zhu is originally from Chengdu, China and the restaurant offers Sichuan-style Chinese food.
Fet-Fisk, a Nordic seafood restaurant in Bloomfield on Liberty Avenue, is nominated for Best New Restaurant in the United States.
Fet-Fisk started in 2019 as a pop-up restaurant in different locations before it opened a brick and mortar location last March.
They offer “sustainably sourced seafood and meat, a wine and spirit program that champions growers using natural and biodynamic practices.”
Nominees for the James Beard Awards will be announced on April 2. Winner will be announced during an awards ceremony on June 16 in Chicago.