On Wednesday morning the James Beard Foundation announced the chefs, beverage programs, restaurants and bars nominated for its 2025 culinary awards — vastly scaling back the number of Los Angeles-area names previously in the running.
In January the James Beard Foundation recognized nearly 20 L.A.-area restaurants, chefs and others as semifinalists. As of this morning, only five from L.A. and Orange County will proceed as nominees.
Each year the James Beard Foundation Awards recognize individuals, businesses and programs in the dining and hospitality industry; the accolades are widely regarded as some of the country’s most prestigious in the culinary world. This year’s winners will be announced in a ceremony held June 16 at Lyric Opera of Chicago.
L.A.-area chefs have been on a roll in the category of best chef: California. Last year Kuya Lord chef-owner Lord Maynard Llera won the honor, and in 2023, Justin Pichetrungsi of Anajak Thai was awarded the title. This year’s nominees include two chefs named on the L.A. Times 2024 101 Best Restaurants guide: Jon Yao and Daniel Castillo.
Yao serves a celebrated tasting menu informed by his Taiwanese heritage. Not only did his Arts District restaurant, Kato, land in the No. 1 spot on the L.A. Times’ list of top restaurants two years in a row, it also garnered a Michelin star and placement in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants.
Yao was a semifinalist or nominee in the rising star chef of the year category in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
Castillo helms Heritage Barbecue in San Juan Capistrano, where some of the most tender brisket, creative smoked sausages and genre-bending, cross-cultural specials can regularly be found. This is the first James Beard nomination (or semifinalist nod) for Castillo and Heritage.
Castillo said he’s celebrating the win as a team effort, and that he hopes the nomination will shed more light on Orange County and its culinary community — as well as barbecue as a whole.
“The light has been shown on the amount of work that goes into being able to operate a barbecue restaurant,” Castillo said. “It’s a marathon and it’s a lot of hard work, it’s a lot of dedication. It’s no different than having a chef working in a fine-dining restaurant: Consistency is important. Above all else, you’re working with live fire versus a switch in a kitchen that you can turn up and down; you’re working with something that’s wild and that takes a lot of patience. It takes a lot of time to master something like that.”
In San Diego, Tara Monsod is also a nominee. Monsod made waves with modern Filipino cuisine at Animae, and also leads the kitchen at sibling restaurant Le Coq, a French steakhouse in La Jolla. Two San Francisco chefs are the other finalists for the state’s best chef: Richard Lee of Saison and Kosuke Tada of Mijoté.
Gusto Bread in Long Beach returns as a nominee in the category of outstanding bakery; the artisanal panadería from owners Arturo Enciso and Ana Belén Salatino began as a homespun operation but blossomed into a full-fledged bakery focusing on heirloom grains and local, seasonal sourcing.
Anaheim’s Strong Water was also a nominee in its category last year. The ambitious tiki destination from husband-and-wife duo Robert Adamson and Ying Chang is once again a contender in the category of outstanding wine or other beverages program, and one of the best tiki bars in Southern California.
Tobin Shea — bar director of Redbird — is a contender for outstanding professional in cocktail service alongside beverage colleagues in Honolulu, New York, Cincinnati and Denver.
This is Shea’s first Beard nod, as well as Redbird’s. At the downtown restaurant he focuses on themed menus with elevated classics, as well as a no-ABV program.
Shea, now in his 30th year bartending, distinctly remembers listening to a podcast that announced the foundation was adding a category for bar programs in 2012, finally recognizing cocktails after a long history celebrating wine.
“In my head I was like, ‘God, this is the justification I need to keep on bartending,’” he said. “My parents were always accepting of it, but they were always like, ‘Are you thinking about getting a job other than bartending now?’ In 2012 I just remember listening to that podcast and being like: That would be absolutely amazing to have that for my career, or just in general — something to work towards.”
Shea was a member of Redbird’s opening team and has been with the stalwart restaurant for more than a decade. He considers the nomination to be in recognition of his whole bar staff, not simply himself.
Shea’s 50th birthday is the week before the 2025 James Beard Foundation Awards ceremony — so he and his family might wind up celebrating both events in Chicago.
“It’s going to be a great week,” he said.
The majority of L.A.’s 2025 semifinalists did not proceed to the nominations round.
In the best chef: California category, nearly half of the semifinalists stemmed from Los Angeles or Orange County. In addition to Yao, Castillo and Monsod, the foundation’s semifinalists included Kwang Uh of Baroo, Alex and Elvia Garcia of Evil Cooks, Evan Algorri of Etra, Charles Namba of Camélia, Danielle Duran-Zecca of Amiga Amore, Melissa López of Barra Santos and Roberto Alcocer of Valle in Oceanside.
In national categories, Holbox’s Gilberto Cetina was named as a semifinalist in the outstanding chef category, while Santa Monica’s Pasjoli was a semifinalist for outstanding restaurant. Damian’s Jesus “Chuy” Cervantes was the only Southern California semifinalist up for this year’s emerging chef award, and Bridgetown Roti was noted as a semifinalist in the best new restaurant grouping. République was a semifinalist for outstanding hospitality while Thunderbolt was a semifinalist in outstanding bar and Nicole Rucker was a semifinalist for outstanding pastry chef or baker.
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