We’re better at more than barbecue
The James Beard Foundation Awards are the Pulitzers, the Oscars and the Grammys of the food world all rolled into one. They cover new cookbooks to magazine articles, design and graphics to chefs and restaurants. There is even a humanitarian award (this year’s winner is France Moore Lappe, author of Diet for a Small Planet)), and awards for restaurants that embody traditional regional American food. This year the list includes a Seattle restaurant that is the only survivor from the city’s Japantown neighborhood and a summertime clam shack in Maine.
The 2008 nominees were announced earlier this year. The winners will be tapped on June 8 in a black tie gala ceremony at Lincoln Center in New York, with a reception to follow. Oh, la la. I’m sure the food will be good.
Best chefs are divided out by region. This year, nominees for the Southeast are Hugh Acheson of Five and Ten in Athens, Ga., Arnaud Berthelier of the Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta, Linton Hopkins of Restaurant Eugene in Atlanta, Robert Stehling of Hominy Grill in Charleston, S.C., and Mike Lata of FIG, also in Charleston.
I walked pass FIG when I was in Charleston last fall. I can’t for the life of me what was on the menu posted outside the small, unassuming building’s door. I remember it sounding simple, but delicious, and even if it was November, fresh and clean. Sadly, it was a Monday, and FIG, like most every restaurant worth its salt, was shuttered. We ended up waiting for a table at a so-so Italian place for something like 45 minutes, gnawing on our knuckles as we looked at the menu. Except for that, it wasn’t very memorable. (Though, by the way, if you are in Charleston sometime soon, please do check out EVO. It’s a pizzeria in the style of the now closed Botta Bing! and Botta Boom! pizza places that Fabian Botta once operated, except that the menu at EVO is smaller, tighter, even more seasonal. The friendly little restaurant is located on an appealing strip of downtown North Charleston going through some serious urban renewal. North Charleston is nothing like Charleston proper - it’s a lot less touristy, grittier and less antebellum - but this place - and the peppery chowder made with local clams available seasonally - is totally worth the side trip.).
I think it’s notable and disappointing that no North Carolina chefs made the cut this year, though. I mean, where’s Andrea Reusing, the craft and spirit behind the stylish and sleek Asian restaurant Lantern in Chapel Hill (a place that made Gourmet’s most recent list of 50 best restaurants - a photo from their dining room is above)?
Reusing did make the initial cut of preliminary nominees. So did Scott Howell of Nana’s in Durham, and Chip Smith of Bonne Soiree in Chapel Hill. And I have no doubt that Lata and Co. deserve the accolades. But it’s a little maddening for me - and hopefully other observers of the North Carolina restaurant scene - to see Charleston and Atlanta so dominate the nominees. We’re good at basketball, sure, but why can’t Tar Heels get some cred for their charcoal-grilled pork meatballs with a herb salad, peanut-hoisin and chile-lime sauce (a dish on a recent specials menu on Lantern’s website)? Oh, and Vietnamese shrimp and rice soup with pea greens, or sea scallops over fiddle head ferns, roasted fingerling potatoes, grilled yellow peppers and chanterelles, and ginger lemon-lime cheesecake with lychee, lime and candied ginger salad (from a Nana’s menu in early March).
