James Andrews Beard was an American chef, cookbook author, teacher and television personality. He pioneered television cooking shows, taught at The James Beard Cooking School in New York City and Seaside, Oregon, and lectured widely. He emphasized American cooking, prepared with fresh and wholesome American ingredients, to a country just becoming aware of its own culinary heritage. Beard taught and mentored generations of professional chefs and food enthusiasts. He published more than twenty books, and his memory is honored by his foundation's annual James Beard Awards.
Anthony Michael Bourdain was an American celebrity chef, author, and travel documentarian. He starred in programs focusing on the exploration of international culture, cuisine, and the human condition.
Jacques Pépin is a French chef, author, culinary educator, television personality, and artist. After having been the personal chef of French President Charles de Gaulle, he moved to the US in 1959 and after working in New York's top French restaurants, refused the same job with President John F. Kennedy in the White House and instead took a culinary development job with Howard Johnson's. During his career, he has served in numerous prestigious restaurants, first, in Paris, and then in America. He has appeared on American television and has written for The New York Times, Food & Wine and other publications. He has authored more than 30 cookbooks, some of which have become best sellers. Pépin was a longtime friend of the American chef Julia Child, and their 1999 PBS series Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home won a Daytime Emmy Award. He also holds a BA and a MA from Columbia University in French literature.
Marcus Samuelsson is an Ethiopian-born Swedish-American celebrity chef, restaurateur and television personality. He is the head chef of Red Rooster in Harlem, New York.
Robert William Flay is an American celebrity chef, food writer, restaurateur, and television personality. Flay is the owner and executive chef of several restaurants and franchises, including Bobby's Burger Palace, Bobby's Burgers, and Amalfi. He has worked with Food Network since 1995, which won him four Daytime Emmy Awards and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
José Ramón Andrés Puerta is a Spanish-American chef and restaurateur. Born in Spain, he moved to the United States in the early 1990s and since then, he has opened restaurants in several American cities. He has won a number of awards, both for his cooking, and his humanitarian work. He is a professor as well as the founder of the Global Food Institute at George Washington University.
Michael Carl Ruhlman is an American author, home cook and entrepreneur.
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. Another show, What's Eating America, premiered on MSNBC in 2020.
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.
Alessandro Stratta is a celebrity chef and restaurateur of mixed Italian and French heritage. Stratta played the role of Iron Chef Italian on the television show Iron Chef USA. He was the recipient of the James Beard Foundation award for Best Chef Southwest in 1998 and was executive chef and owner of his famous namesake restaurant, Alex, in Las Vegas until its closure on January 15, 2011. He was later diagnosed with colon cancer and became a cancer survivor. He was the executive chef and owner of "Tapas by Alex Stratta" in the Las Vegas suburb of Summerlin, until it closed in 2015. In 2016, Stratta became executive chef de cuisine at Prado restaurant at the Omni Hotel in Paradise Valley, Arizona.
Aquavit is a Scandinavian restaurant located at 65 East 55th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. In November 2016, an outpost was launched in London by Philip Hamilton.
Gabrielle Hamilton is an American chef and author. She is the chef and owner of Prune, a restaurant in New York City, and the author of Blood, Bones, and Butter, a memoir.
Johnny Iuzzini /u-zee-nee/ is a New York City-based American pastry chef, television celebrity, and cookbook author. He served as executive pastry chef at Daniel from 2001 through 2002 and at Jean Georges from 2002 through 2011. Iuzzini is the author of two cookbooks and was a judge on the first three seasons of The Great American Baking Show. On November 29, 2017, Iuzzini was accused of sexual harassment by four former employees and the third season of The Great American Baking Show was pulled after one episode.
James Kenji López-Alt is an American chef and food writer. His first book, The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science, became a critical and commercial success, charting on the New York Times Bestseller list and winning the 2016 James Beard Foundation Award for the best General Cooking cookbook. The cookbook expanded on López-Alt's "The Food Lab" column on the Serious Eats blog. López-Alt is known for using the scientific method in his cooking to improve popular American recipes and to explain the science of cooking.
Jacquy Pfeiffer is a French master pastry chef and teacher. He co-founded the French Pastry School in Chicago, and co-authored The Art of French Pastry cookbook. He is the primary subject of the 2010 documentary Kings of Pastry.
Jessica B. Harris is an American culinary historian, college professor, cookbook author and journalist. She is professor emerita at Queens College, City University of New York, where she taught for 50 years, and is also the author of 15 books, including cookbooks, non-fiction food writing and memoir. She has twice won James Beard Foundation Awards, including for Lifetime Achievement in 2020, and her book High on the Hog was adapted in 2021 as a four-part Netflix series by the same name.
Veronica Chambers is an Afro-Latina author, teacher, and magazine executive. Chambers has been an editor and writer for New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Glamour, Good Housekeeping, Premiere, Esquire, Parade and O, The Oprah Magazine.
Eater is a food website by Vox Media. It was co-founded by Lockhart Steele and Ben Leventhal in 2005, and originally focused on dining and nightlife in New York City. Eater launched a national site in 2009, and covered nearly 20 cities by 2012. Vox Media acquired Eater, along with two others comprising the Curbed Network, in late 2013. In 2017, Eater had around 25 local sites in the United States, Canada, and England. The site has been recognized twelve times by the James Beard Foundation Awards.
Kwame Onwuachi is a Nigerian-American chef based in New York City, New York. A published author and restaurateur, he also appeared as a contestant on Top Chef in 2015. He was recognized by Food & Wine magazine, Esquire magazine, and the James Beard Foundation as "Rising Star Chef of the year" in 2019.
Francis Lam is an American food journalist, cookbook editor, and since 2017 the host of American Public Media's The Splendid Table.
