Benu is a three-Michelin star New American restaurant located in the SoMa district of downtown San Francisco opened in 2010 by chef Corey Lee, the former Chef de cuisine at the French Laundry. Benu made the list of The World's 50 Best Restaurants in 2019.
Anthony Michael Bourdain was an American celebrity chef, author, and travel documentarian who starred in programs focusing on the exploration of international culture, cuisine, and the human condition. Bourdain was a 1978 graduate of The Culinary Institute of America and a veteran of many professional kitchens during his career, which included several years spent as an executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in Manhattan. He first became known for his bestselling book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (2000).
Ecco is a New York-based publishing imprint of HarperCollins. It was founded in 1971 by Daniel Halpern as an independent publishing company; Publishers Weekly described it as "one of America's best-known literary houses." In 1999 Ecco was acquired by HarperCollins, with Halpern remaining at the head. Since 2000, Ecco has published the yearly anthology The Best American Science Writing, edited by Jesse Cohen. In 2011, Ecco created two separate publishing lines, one "curated" by chef-author Anthony Bourdain and the other by novelist Dennis Lehane.
Eric Frank Ripert is a French chef, author, and television personality specializing in modern French cuisine and noted for his work with seafood.
Jeremiah Tower is an American celebrity chef who, along with Alice Waters and Wolfgang Puck, has been credited with pioneering the culinary style known as California cuisine. A food lover from childhood, he had no formal culinary education before beginning his career as a chef.
Andrew Scott Zimmern is an American chef, restaurateur, television and radio personality, director, producer, businessman, food critic, and author. Zimmern is the co-creator, host, and consulting producer of the Travel Channel television series Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern,Bizarre Foods America, Bizarre Foods: Delicious Destinations, Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre World, Dining with Death, The Zimmern List, and Andrew Zimmern's Driven by Food, as well as the Food Network series The Big Food Truck Tip. For his work on Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, he was presented the James Beard Foundation Award four times: in 2010, 2012, 2013, and 2017. Zimmern hosts a cooking webseries on YouTube, Andrew Zimmern Cooks. His show, What's Eating America, premiered on MSNBC in 2020.
David Chang is an American restaurateur, author, podcaster, and television personality. He is the founder of the Momofuku restaurant group. In 2009, Momofuku Ko was awarded two Michelin stars, which the restaurant has retained each year since. He co-founded the influential food magazine Lucky Peach in 2011 which lasted for 25 quarterly volumes into 2017. In 2018, Chang created, produced, and starred in a Netflix original series called Ugly Delicious, and through his Majordomo Media group, he has produced and/or starred in more television and podcasts. On November 29, 2020, he became the first celebrity to win the $1,000,000 top prize for his charity, Southern Smoke Foundation, and the fourteenth overall million dollar winner on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
The James Beard Foundation Awards are annual awards presented by the James Beard Foundation to recognize chefs, restaurateurs, authors and journalists in the United States. They are scheduled around James Beard's May 5 birthday. The media awards are presented at a dinner in New York City; the chef and restaurant awards were also presented in New York until 2015, when the foundation's annual gala moved to Chicago. Chicago will continue to host the Awards until 2027.
Jonathan Gold was an American food critic and music critic. He was for many years the chief food critic for the Los Angeles Times and also wrote for LA Weekly and Gourmet, in addition to serving as a regular contributor on KCRW's Good Food radio program. Gold often chose small, traditional immigrant restaurants for his reviews, although he covered all types of cuisine. In 2007, while writing for the LA Weekly, he became the first food critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.
Alan Richman is an American journalist and food writer. He was a food correspondent for GQ magazine, and has won 16 James Beard Foundation Awards for journalism.
Momofuku is a culinary brand established by chef David Chang in 2004 with the opening of Momofuku Noodle Bar. It includes restaurants in New York City, Toronto, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles, a bakery established by pastry chef Christina Tosi, a bar (Nikai), and a quarterly magazine. The restaurants are notable for their innovative take on cuisine while supporting local, sustainable and responsible farmers and food purveyors.
Zero Point Zero Production, Inc. is a television, film, print, and digital content company founded in 2003 by Executive Producers Chris Collins and Lydia Tenaglia. Since its inception, the company has produced hundreds of hours of documentary content in over 100 countries around the world, including the critically acclaimed, Emmy and Peabody Award-winning series Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, the Emmy Award-winning The Mind of a Chef, and Emmy nominated The Hunt with John Walsh. As of 2019, ZPZ has received 27 Emmy Awards with 80 Nominations, A Peabody Award, 2 PGA Awards, 5 ACE Eddie Awards, and 5 James Beard Awards. The company also publishes Food Republic.
The Mind of a Chef is a non-fiction television series on PBS narrated and executive produced by Anthony Bourdain, and combines travel, cooking, history, and science. Each season follows a different chef, or pair of chefs, and examines their beliefs and philosophies on cooking and the culinary arts.
Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown is an American travel and food show on CNN which premiered on April 14, 2013. In the show, Anthony Bourdain travels the world uncovering lesser-known places and exploring their cultures and cuisine. The show won twelve Primetime Emmy Awards out of 31 nominations, as well as a 2013 Peabody Award. The digital series Explore Parts Unknown, an editorial partnership with Roads & Kingdoms, won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Form Nonfiction or Reality Series. Parts Unknown aired the last collection of episodes on CNN in the autumn of 2018. The series finale, titled "Lower East Side" — bringing Bourdain's culinary travelogue full circle back to Bourdain's hometown of New York — aired November 11, 2018.
Calumet Fisheries is a seafood restaurant in the South Deering neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, United States, directly next to the 95th Street bridge. It was originally established in 1928, and subsequently purchased in 1948 by Sid Kotlick and Len Toll. It serves smoked and fried fish, shrimp, and clams. The restaurant is often featured on TV shows and web series', such as Eater's Dining on a Dime and Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. The building is a one-room shack with a counter and no seating. Patrons can take their food to go, or sit in their parked cars along 95th Street to eat.
John Currence is an American chef based in Oxford, Mississippi. As of 2019 he owns four restaurants in the city of Oxford: City Grocery, Big Bad Breakfast, Bourè, and Snackbar in addition to a catering business, The Main Event. Currence also owns numerous Big Bad Breakfast locations in Alabama, Florida, Tennessee and South Carolina. He won a James Beard Award in 2009 for the category of Best Chef, South, at City Grocery. He later also participated in the third season of the Bravo television competition Top Chef Masters.
Roads & Kingdoms is an independent online publication that explores culture and politics through food and travel. Founded in 2012 by veteran journalists Nathan Thornburgh and Matt Goulding, along with graphic designer Douglas Hughmanick, Roads & Kingdoms is based in Brooklyn, New York, and Barcelona, Spain. In 2017, Roads & Kingdoms won the James Beard Foundation Award for Publication of the Year. In 2019, Roads & Kingdoms won the National Magazine Award for Website, Service and Lifestyle.
Matt Goulding is an American food journalist, book author, and producer based in Barcelona, Spain. He was food editor at Men's Health magazine, where he wrote the column Eat This, Not That, which became a book series. In 2012, he co-founded Roads & Kingdoms with longtime foreign correspondent Nathan Thornburgh. They were joined in 2015 by television host and author Anthony Bourdain, who remained a partner and editor-at-large at Roads & Kingdoms until Bourdain's death in 2018.
Edward Fitzpatrick O’Keefe is the Chief Executive Officer of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation, and a former media executive. O’Keefe worked at ABC News, before serving as the founding Editor-in-Chief of media start-up NowThis. After working at NowThis for two years, O’Keefe moved to CNN to lead the strategy and growth of CNN businesses including CNNMoney, CNN Politics, and Travel. In 2019, O’Keefe was accepted as a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he researched the future of journalism and streaming news, publishing his findings in his paper “Streaming War Won.” During his time at Harvard, O’Keefe also conducted research on Theodore Roosevelt. After leaving Harvard, O’Keefe spent time consulting news organizations and continuing research before announcing his upcoming book and role as CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library.
The James Beard Foundation Awards are annual awards presented by the James Beard Foundation to recognize culinary professionals in the United States. The awards recognize chefs, restaurateurs, authors and journalists each year, and are generally scheduled around James Beard's May birthday.
