Why Chicago Needs Its Own James Beard Award Category Right Now

By Anthony Todd in Food on Mar 16, 2016 2:41PM

Shrimp and grits at Big Jones

It's James Beard Award season, and, like every year, I write the same articles about the semi-finalists, the final nominees, whether Chicago did well or not, and whether the James Beard Award committee seems to have its stuff together. But every year, I notice a structural problem with the awards, and now it's getting worse. The James Beard Awards need a Chicago category, and they need it right now.

This isn't just Chicago patriotism talking (though there's some of that). I've got math to back me up. So hear me out. While many of the awards (best chef, best new restaurant) are national, the ones that matter to most diners are the regional "Best Chef" awards. That's because these regional categories bestow awards (and almost as importantly, finalist nominations) on restaurants that people living in those regions actually go to. A James Beard Award finalist is, to the knowledgeable diner, as good as a Michelin star and better than a Zagat rating, and I've rarely been led astray by their recommendations.

Each category corresponds to a region of the country, except for New York City, which has its own category. This made sense once upon a time, when NYC was not just the center of the culinary world, but light years ahead of everywhere else. Presumably, the logic went, you can't incorporate New York into New England or Mid-Atlantic, because only New York chefs would get nominated and chefs in all the rest of those states and cities would get totally ignored.

Well, that's exactly what is happening in Chicago now, and the reason we need our own category.

The geographical districts aren't completely obvious to the average viewer. Chicago is in the "Great Lakes" category, which includes Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. But not Wisconsin, which is in the Midwest category along with a ton of other states (IA, KS, MN, MO, NE, ND and SD).

Here's the problem with that: Chicago so dominates the Great Lakes category that chefs in those other states are just as screwed as New England would be if New York didn't have its own category.

Lets see some math. Chicago isn't quite as dominant in the semi-finalist group, where there are 20 possible nominees. Though, consider that this is one city compared to four entire states. Chicago generally gets about half.

But in the finalist group, Chicago almost always dominates, with 4/5 most years and, 5/5 in 2016. Just FYI, i'm counting the suburbs as Chicago. Compare this to the population—there are 41 million people in those states, and only about 9 million of them live in Chicagoland.

Also note: in 2013, 2014 and 2015, that solo non-Chicagoan was the same person—Jonathan Sawyer of Cleveland. That means that for four years, only one single, solitary non-Chicagoan has made it to the finals of this entire category.

Why does this matter?

Two reasons. First, and (most selfishly for us), having its own category would solidify Chicago's status as an important culinary destination. We'd have our own award, and our chefs could fight it out for glory. Since we're gonna win anyway, the narrative of the story will change from "Yay Chicago" to "Who in our dining community deserves this award?"

But more importantly, it's more fair to the rest of the Midwest. Right now, Best Chef: Midwest has eight states crammed into it and Best Chef: Great Lakes has three states that aren't Illinois (plus the rest of Illinois outside of Chicago). Strip away Chicago, and then redistribute states between the Great Lakes and Midwest regions to even things out. This would mean that the amazing restaurants in the smaller cities of the Midwest, places like Milwaukee, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Detroit and Kansas City, would have even more of a chance to shine. These restaurants are destinations, both for their own locals and for people traveling from across the country, and right now they're either fighting with chefs in seven other states or being dominated by the Chicago dining scene.

The Midwest category is already incredibly diverse, with chefs from all over the place finally getting some of the attention they deserve. Let's make that happen at the Beards in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. Places like Trattoria Stella, in Traverse City, and Restaurant Talent, in Bloomington, which get nominated multiple times and never make it to the finals. Or, say, every nominee in Indianapolis (which got 8 in the last three years) or Detroit that never even has a chance of making it.

Some may cry, "If Chicago gets its own category, where does it stop?" Well, Chicago should pretty much be it. Best Chef: West doesn't have this problem, because LA's culinary scene isn't robust enough to dominate. The noms out west are split between LA, San Francisco, Napa and a smattering of chefs from Vegas, Hawaii and elsewhere.

So get to it, James Beard. What a great thing this would be to announce at the awards ceremony, which is in Chicago, on May 2.

Note: A different version of this article (with similar conclusions) was published on my blog in 2014.