Shaya restaurant in New Orleans was named the country's Best New Restaurant at the James Beard Awards gala held Monday night (May 2) in Chicago. A Beard Award is one of the highest honors available to American restaurants and culinary professionals, and it capstones a heady year-plus for Alon Shaya, the restaurant's chef and namesake.
"New Orleans is the best food city in the world right now," chef Shaya said when he accepted the award. "We have so many wonderful things going on."
The award was announced not long after Justin Devillier, the chef and co-owner of La Petite Grocery and Balise in New Orleans, won Best Chef: South, a regional category in which he bested fellow local nominees Slade Rushing of Brennan's and Isaac Toups of Toups' Meatery – and that Shaya himself, who is also chef and co-owner of Domenica and Pizza Domenica, won just last year.
La Petite Grocery and Shaya are located just across Magazine Street from each other in Uptown New Orleans.
The James Beard Foundation also awarded this year's prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award to Leah Chase, of Dooky Chase – an honor announced early this year.
"Madisonville, just look at me now," Chase said during her acceptance speech, referring to the small Louisiana town where she was born. "A long ways from the strawberry patch."
Later, the 93 year-old chef promised, "You can look me up ten years down the road. I will be working."
Shaya opened in Uptown New Orleans in February 2015. The restaurant, which is co-owned by John Besh, has been a sensation from the get-go. The food pays tribute to chef Shaya's native Israel. Reservations to taste that food have been unusually hard to come by. Several national food outlets named Shaya among the country's best new restaurant openings of the year. I gasped over the restaurant in a four-bean review in July.
"Who woulda thought hummus in New Orleans?" Shaya said when he accepted his medal. "What was everyone thinking?"
Last fall, in naming Shaya one of the five best new local restaurants of 2015, I proclaimed it, along with Pêche Seafood Grill, to be most impressive to open here so far this decade. As it happens, Pêche won the Best New Restaurant Beard back in 2014.
The national category is extremely competitive. Pêche and Shaya are the only New Orleans restaurants to ever win a James Beard Best New Restaurant award. Shaya beat out five other restaurants for this year's honor: Death & Taxes in Raleigh, N.C.; Launderette in Austin, Texas; Liholiho Yacht Club in San Francisco; Staplehouse in Atlanta; and Wildair in New York City.
The Beard Awards are often referred to as the food world's Oscars. The awards, like the foundation that administers them, are named after the revered American chef, cookbook author and culinary educator James Beard.
