Twin Cities food scene earns two James Beard Awards, including Best New Restaurant

Minnesota took home two James Beard Awards during Monday night’s ceremony, earning some national recognition for its locally evangelized food scene.

Bûcheron, a French American eatery in Minneapolis’ Kingfield neighborhood, was awarded Best New Restaurant.

“We have spent, all of us, the last year and a half pushing and scraping and laughing and crying and raising our families and challenging ourselves to make this restaurant everything that we knew it could be, and we are so unbelievably proud of what it’s become,” owner Jeanie Janas Ritter said in her acceptance speech. “It’s the neighborhood restaurant that we always wanted in our neighborhood.”

Ritter and her husband had been to the awards before, but only to cook for others.

“The really special thing about this award is that it’s the award for the restaurant, it’s for our team. They’re incredible and they worked so hard, all of the men in our group were crying on the stage because they are so genuinely committed,” Ritter said.

Karyn Tomlinson of Myriel in St. Paul was named Best Chef in the Midwest. The restaurant combines French, Nordic and Midwestern cuisine and prides itself on working with local farmers.

“At Myriel what we still talk about a lot is to do everything with intentionality, everything should have a purpose and we should have conviction behind everything we do. And that’s the stuff people may not notice right away but what eventually has the most staying power,” she said. “No one can kind of look the other way about what we have to offer in Minnesota. We’re not just a flyover state. We are worth visiting and I think this only underscores that.”

This is the second year in a row a Twin Cities chef won that award, with Christina Nguyen of Minneapolis’ Hai Hai taking it home last year. Two other local chefs were nominated this year: Shigeyuki Furukawa of Kado no Mise and Diane Moua of Diane’s Place.

The Twin Cities were also honored with a Best New Restaurant award in 2022, when Owamni earned the title.

The James Beard Awards are considered the restaurant industry’s most prestigious honors.   

Erin Hassanzadeh

contributed to this report.