These 6 Northern California chefs and restaurants are nominated for 2024 James Beard awards

The James Beard Foundation today announced the latest set of nominees for its 2024 Restaurant and Chef awards, as well as the honorees of the foundation's 2024 Leadership Awards.

The James Beard Foundation today announced its short list of nominees for 2024 restaurant and chef awards, as well as the honorees of the foundation’s 2024 Leadership Awards.

Northern California nominees for the 2024 restaurant and chef awards include the following:

• Best New Restaurant: Chez Noir, Carmel-by-the-Sea. This award is for a restaurant that opened between Oct. 1, 2022 and Sept. 30, 2023 that offers excellent cuisine, is likely to have a significant impact in the future and contributes to the community.
• Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program: The Morris, San Francisco. This award is for a restaurant that skillfully pairs wine and other drinks with its food and contributes to the community, with an eye toward hospitality, service, ethical sourcing and enhancing customers’ appreciation for the drinks.
• Outstanding Bar: Pacific Cocktail Haven, San Francisco. This award is for a bar offering wine, beer, cocktails, coffee or other drinks that excellently curates and prepares drinks, contributes to the community and offers outstanding atmosphere, hospitality and operations.
• Best Chef, California: Geoff Davis, Burdell, Oakland; Rogelio Garcia, Auro, Calistoga; and Buu “Billy” Ngo, Kru, Sacramento. This award is for chefs whose leadership and culinary skills set high standards, support a sustainable work culture in their regions and contribute the community.

There are 22 categories overall, and the winners will be announced June 10 at a ceremony in Chicago. Find the full list of nominees here.

The foundation also honored Mai Nguyen of Farmer Mai for a Leadership Award in the category of sustainability. Nguyen is a first-generation Vietnamese-American farmer who has studied the effects of carbon on the atmosphere and soil. They have provided disaster relief and water sanitation projects for refugee camps in Southeast Asia, worked to support land justice organizing for California farmers of color and Indigenous communities and helped to pass the 2017 Farmer Equity Act in California. They specialize in growing heirloom grains and Southeast Asian crops using techniques that enrich the soil in Upper Lake, California.