The culinary world’s equivalent of the Oscars will be announcing winners Monday night. 25 categories of restaurants, chefs and more will be feted at the ceremony for the James Beard Awards in Chicago.
Several of those restaurants - and bars - come from Minnesota which once again is well-represented in Chicago.
Those include St. Paul's Myriel and chef Karyn Tomlinson who is a finalist for Best Chef: Midwest. She's been a semifinalist but as a first-time finalist, she tells Jason DeRusha on an episode of "DeRusha Easts" this past year that it still shocks her that tiny Myriel gets noticed. It's far from their first honor. Last year Tomlinson was named Food and Wine's Best New Chef of 2024.
"Kind of wild, honestly, I mean, we're so tucked away," Tomlinson tells DeRusha. "I always kind of am amazed when anybody notices us who's not from Minnesota, especially in St. Paul, you know. It's the smaller, less known city, and Minnesota definitely is - although the Midwest is having a moment now, I'd say."
That "moment" she mentioned is reinforced by the incredible success for places like Myriel, Bar Brava, Bûcheron, Diane's Place and Kado no Mise is having on a natiaonl stage like the James Beard Awards.
Two of those - Bûcheron and Bar Brava - are up for national awards while the other three are nominated in the Midwest region.
For Tomlinson, it's an interesting dichotomy, where she has felt almost more noticed nationally than locally, and perhaps that's because her food might be more familiar to Minnesotans?
"But it's kind of wild to me, there still are a lot of people in town here, people even who live in the neighborhood, who are still discovering the restaurant for the first time," she said. "And I think that what we're doing maybe, it resonates, it might feel kind of normal to Midwesterners. But it feels more special to people with an outside perspective."
Winners will be announced at the 35th Anniversary James Beard Awards Ceremony on June 16, at the Lyric Opera in Chicago.
Bûcheron, Minneapolis — Best New Restaurant
Kingfield-based Bûcheron, which translates to ‘lumberjack’ in French, features French-American cuisine while drawing inspiration from the skill and craftsmanship of generations of lumberjacks who worked and lived in Minnesota. Located at 42nd and Nicollet, Bûcheron features and ever-changing menu led by chef and co-owner Adam Ritt.
Bar Brava, Minneapolis — Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program
Bar Brava from owner Dan Rice is a natural wine bar and scratch kitchen that features rotating guest chef residencies and pop-ups near the corner of Washington Ave. and Broadway in North Minneapolis. Natural wine is a relative newcomer in Minnesota. Natural wine is a style of winemaking that focuses on minimal intervention and a more natural approach to grape cultivation and fermentation.
Shigeyuki Furukawa, Kado no Mise, Minneapolis — Best Chef: Midwest
Shigeyuki Furukawa of Kado no Mise was born and trained in Japan. He brings an ancient style of small, multi-course dining to his Minneapolis North Loop restaurant. Furukawa only offers omakase prix-fixe tasting menus. Omakase, which translates to “I’ll leave it up to you,” is a dining experience in which you leave your evening in the hands of the sushi chef, who orchestrates a highly-curated sequence of dishes.
Diane Moua, Diane’s Place, Minneapolis, MN — Best Chef: Midwest
Diane's Place brings her Hmong background to a morning through night dining experience in Northeast Minneapolis, serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Moua is the former pastry chef at renowned Minneapolis restaurant La Belle Vie and brings considerable talent to her baked goods and pastry work obviously. But adds in her Hmong heritage and enjoys cooking sweet and savory dishes using locally grown and raised produce.
Karyn Tomlinson, Myriel, St. Paul, MN — Best Chef: Midwest
Tomlinson's Myriel is a very intimate, very Midwestern aesthetic to fine dining. She works with local Ag producers - mostly in the Dasel-Cokato area where she is from - and creates a tasty and cozy menu that even grandma would recognize. You'll even eat your meal off of repurposed china scrounged from garage sales you'd find in many of those Scandinavian homes across Minnesota.