Here are all of the 2023 Los Angeles James Beard Award winners, including L.A. Times Food critic Bill Addison.
Dubbed the “biggest night of the year for the culinary industry” and “the Oscars of food,” the James Beard Foundation’s annual restaurant and dining awards are some of the highest accolades that chefs, restaurateurs and others in the industry can garner. Following weeks of controversy surrounding the foundation and its investigations into semifinalists and nominees, the awards ceremony took place in Chicago with big wins for some of the country’s most recognizable culinary names and up-and-comers.
This year some of the most acclaimed chefs in Los Angeles took home national and regional awards — as did Los Angeles Times Food critic Bill Addison, who won a media award on Saturday.
Justin Pichetrungsi, chef of L.A. Times restaurant of 2022 Anajak Thai, won best chef: California, an award he largely credits to the tutelage of his parents — and especially to his father, who cooked for 38 of Anajak’s 41 years before passing the torch to his son. A number of his fellow nominees, he noted, also cook with their parents, although it isn’t always easy.
“There’s a lot of intergenerational pain there and we’re trying to heal it one dish at a time; my parents are my teachers,” Pichetrungsi said before thanking his team, then added, “I’d love to thank my parents because they are my greatest allies. They argue with me a lot. I have the hardest conversations with them about where the direction of the restaurant is going, where the direction of cooks are going to be going, what’s the math involved in all this stuff. But they gave me the tools to do everything else, and for that I’m eternally grateful for them.”
A semifinalist or nominee every year since 2015, République co-owner and lauded pastry chef Margarita Manzke was finally awarded outstanding pastry chef or baker; an employee excitedly accepted the award on behalf of Manzke, who could not attend the ceremony.
Echo Park sake bar Ototo — which Addison dubbed “L.A.’s best sake bar” last year — won in the category of outstanding wine and other beverages program.
