Minnesotans nab 11 semifinalist nods for the 2025 James Beard Awards

After a year of Minnesota chefs being front and center on the nation's culinary stage, the scene was set for another big year as 11 Minnesota chefs and restaurants were named semifinalists for the 2025 James Beard Foundation Awards, a historic showing.

"It's incredible to see how important Minneapolis has become to the national food scene," said Gavin Kaysen, whose restaurant Spoon and Stable was recognized.

The culinary awards, widely viewed as the industry's highest honors, recognize and celebrate excellence in the hospitality industry and food media. The restaurant awards fall into 10 national and 12 regional categories. This year, six Twin Cities representatives are getting nods in national categories:

In the Outstanding Chef category: Ann Ahmed for Khâluna, Minneapolis; Outstanding Hospitality: Mucci's Italian, St. Paul; Outstanding Restaurant: Spoon and Stable, Minneapolis; and Best New Restaurant: Bûcheron and Vinai, both Minneapolis. Bar Brava, the Minneapolis natural wine bar, made the list in the Outstanding Wine Program category.

In the Best Chef: Midwest category, Shigeyuki Furukawa of Kado no Mise and Diane Moua of Diane's Place, both Minneapolis; Abraham Gessesse of Hyacinth and Myriel's Karyn Tomlinson, both St. Paul; and Mateo Mackbee for Krewe in St. Joseph.

National awards

Adam Ritter and Jeanie Janas Ritter were just running out the door to tend to kids and restaurant matters when they learned their Bûcheron was nominated for Best New Restaurant. They received a text from fellow nominee and award-winning chef Gavin Kaysen, someone they've both worked for at his restaurants.

"We're absolutely thrilled," Janas Ritter said. "It's super exciting to see our friends who we just adore and respect on that list. We're in really good company and we're really grateful for the recognition."

Yia Vang was in Kansas City, where he's a guest chef at the Town Company, when his public relations team broke the news to him. The chefs at that restaurant were nominated, too: Johnny Leach, as a semifinalist in the Best Chef: Midwest category, and his wife, Helen Jo Leach, in the best pastry chef category. They cheered and congratulated each other.

Vang's next reaction was elation over how many Minnesota restaurants and chefs were nominated. As he readied to feature dishes from Vinai in Kansas City, he said the nomination for the restaurant celebrating his Hmong heritage is an honor.

But the big reward, he said, has been his restaurant's place in the community. He thought about diners who have come through, including those who stayed at Vinai, the refugee camp in Thailand where he and his family lived and the restaurant's namesake.

"I got emotional," he said. "One of them told their story of the pain and the heartache at the camp. Vinai was a place of tears and pain and suffering, but we were sitting in Vinai, the restaurant, and there was laughter — it's a place of joy and rebirth."

The two are among 30 restaurants in the competitive category.

Outstanding Restaurant, Spoon and Stable: Gavin Kaysen's first Minneapolis restaurant earned the recognition a decade after being a Best New Restaurant nominee.

"It's really exciting. I love it, too, because it's about the whole entity of the space and the team. I love that it celebrates everyone that has helped contribute to the restaurant," said Kaysen.

"I never expect it. I knew the list was coming out today and I was hoping to see familiar names on it. It's amazing to see alumni from Spoon and Stable recognized. Diane [Moua of Diane's Place], Adam [Ritter of Bûcheron] and Vinai are all there. They all came through Spoon."

Outstanding Chef, Ann Ahmed: This is the third year in a row Ahmed has been recognized for her Lao restaurant Khâluna, but the first time in a national category. She was a Best Chef: Midwest semifinalist in 2023, and advanced to be a nominee in 2024. The restaurant, opened in 2021, garnered three stars from the Minnesota 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 traveling in Laos.

Outstanding Wine Program, Bar Brava: Dan Rice ignored the adage of real estate when he chose a north Minneapolis corner for his natural wine bar. Since it opened in 2019, the area has begun to change. And change is at the heart of Bar Brava, where Rice is dedicated to uplifting winemakers with a dedication to craft.

"We named Bar Brava for the Catalan word for 'brave' or 'rugged,'" said Rice. "I think that kind of means everything natural wine stands for and we were planting a flag for what we do."

To get the national recognition was nearly overwhelming. "It's an honor. It's a huge — I mean, James Beard anything is a big honor. We're stoked. We're looking forward to sharing our wines with even more people."

Outstanding Hospitality, Mucci's: "I couldn't believe it," said restaurateur Tim Niver of Mucci's first recognition by the James Beard Awards, and a highlight for the hospitality leader. "I cried. I jumped around.

"Hospitality is a thing inside you," he said. "It's a less tangible part of the experience. The chef's talent is poured into a plate that people can see. For the hospitality, you're dealing with something ephemeral. It's making the person in front of you feel like the only one. Or in a group, it's creating community — it's some kind of connection."

Niver has been a part of the Twin Cities restaurant world for more than 25 years, and has garnered a reputation for his singular style of hospitality that blends informality and excellence.

"I believe this is my expression of love," he said. "To have this external validation is really powerful. I get to share this with every person that has touched Mucci's just by being their honest selves. And with my wife. She's been beside me in this car the whole way."

Best Chef: Midwest

Shigeyuki Furukawa

Star Tribune restaurant critic Jon Cheng was the first to reach Kado no Mise chef/owner Shigeyuki Furukawa to share the news that he was on the category's long list. "First, I am so honored to be considered by the James Beard Foundation," said Furukawa. "There are so many great highly talented chefs in Midwest. I am so happy to be part of their consideration!"

Kado No Mise opened in 2017 as an ode to the style of cooking Furukawa learned while living in Tokyo. The second-floor eatery in the North Loop serves up a prix-fixe omakase menu that leaves it to the chef to curate dishes, with the majority of ingredients from Japan.

"It has quietly become a league of its own," Cheng said in 2022, saying Furukawa and team "have nearly perfected the art of a type of sushi called nigiri."

"Our name is still not well known," Furukawa said. "So, I would like to take this opportunity to spread the word about Japanese food culture."

Abraham Gessesse

This is the first recognition for Abraham Gessesse, who purchased Hyacinth from its founding chef in 2023. He studied first at the Hubert H. Humphrey Job Corps Center in Minneapolis, inspired to study cooking by his mother. "I'm still trying to catch up to my mother," he said at the time. "Sourdough breads, fermentations and cheeses — all of our family events were centered around food."

His formative food experiences, though, come from his family in Ethiopia. The Italian food he grew up with informs the Italian fare at the Grand Avenue eatery.

The Star Tribune previously praised Hyacinth for "improving its culinary repertoire year after year," despite not getting the acclaim it deserves.

Mateo Mackbee

"I'm usually not at a loss for words, but I'm at a loss for words right now. I'm in the company of a talented group of chefs; it's kind of odd for me being the Minnesota chef on this list from a small college town that we're being recognized," said Mateo Mackbee of Krewe.

"We just go to work every day and I'm just happy for the community that it's something that they can be proud of. I'm humbled for sure."

The chef and his fiancée, Erin Lucas, opened Krewe alongside their bakery Flour and Flower in St. Joseph in May 2020. At the time, it was a gamble to open a New Orleans heritage style restaurant outside of the Twin Cities. But Mackbee, whose grandfather was a chef and mom was born and raised in New Orleans, said the area has embraced it.

"This is a dream of mine to open a restaurant that celebrates the New Orleans side of my family," Mackbee said. "We're really happy to be cooking that kind of food and stay true to the classic red beans, gumbo, jambalaya that are my grandfather's recipes. I'm just trying to carry on his legacy through cooking."

Diane Moua

"Everybody on the list is [expletive] great," said chef Diane Moua of Diane's Place. Previously recognized for desserts, this is Moua's first nomination in the category. "I've been on the long list maybe five times for pastry, but this is so amazing to be recognized as Best Chef: Midwest. It's the same level of exciting, but it means even more as a pastry chef turned chef. I mean, you never see a chef turn into a pastry chef. It's really cool to get that acknowledgment."

Moua also extended the honor to her entire team, noting that there was a staff recognition party the night before. "A chef and a restaurant are only as good as the team and I am 100 percent here because of the team behind me. To have their support and the support of the city — it's incredible."

Karyn Tomlinson

The chef-owner of St. Paul's Myriel, Karyn Tomlinson is fresh off her recognition as one of Food & Wine's Best New Chefs, but she wasn't waiting by the phone. "I try to forget when the list is coming out because I don't want to get too nervous. But I think this is the second time that Yia [Vang] has been the first person to text me. It's been a really fun little flurry of chef community communication."

After spending the previous day in staff meetings, Tomlinson was reflective. "I was looking back to where we were — starting during the pandemic to where we are now and it hit me that everyone was taking seriously what we do. And what a great group of people to be doing it with — especially now. It's nice in the armpit of winter to have this little boost for everybody."

Passing the torch

Last year Christina Nguyen took home the award for Best Chef: Midwest for her work at Hai Hai. It was a major comeback for the local culinary scene; in 2022, no Minnesota chefs were recognized in the final list for the category. Fellow Minneapolis chef Ann Ahmed also was a finalist.

Past local winners include former La Belle Vie chef Tim McKee's win in 2009, Alex Roberts (Restaurant Alma) in 2010, Isaac Becker (112 Eatery) in 2011, Paul Berglund (formerly of the Bachelor Farmer) in 2016, Gavin Kaysen (Spoon and Stable) in 2018 and Ann Kim (Young Joni) in 2019.

Kaysen is Minnesota's only national James Beard Award-winning chef; he was named Rising Star Chef of the Year in 2008 during his tenure at Café Boulud in New York City. In 2022, Owamni brought home the national honor of Best New Restaurant; Gustavo and Kate Romero's Oro by Nixta was a finalist in the same category last year.

The semifinalist list will be trimmed in April, when the James Beard Foundation releases its list of nominees. Established in 1990, the James Beard Awards are often described as the Oscars of the food world. The 2025 awards ceremony is June 9 in Chicago.

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