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The Chef's Cut

James Beard Finalists Revealed: The Surprises, Snubs, and Secrets!!

4/7/202621 min

The 2026 James Beard Award Nominee finalists were just announced, so Adrienne and Joe dive headfirst into the biggest surprises, omissions, and things they’d like to see happen this year. In this episode, we discuss:

The biggest names to make each of the lists

Why weren’t there any Caribbean restaurants represented?

An explanation on how the awards process works

What they’d like to see changed, and why the regional layout may need a makeover

Adrienne Cheatham is a member of the James Beard Awards subcommittee

Clips

Die-On-This-Hill Rant Begins
Fix The Great Lakes Map
What Even Is Mid-Atlantic?
Where’s Afro-Caribbean Representation?
How Was Simon Not In?
Top Snubs: Joe’s List

Transcript preview

First 90 seconds

  1. Adrienne Cheatham· Host0:00

    [gentle music] This week on The Chef's Cut, Joe and I are talking about the recently released James Beard Awards finalist list. We're starting with the biggest shockers. I was sure they were gonna make the nominee list. How judging actually works.

  2. Joe Flamm· Host0:16

    Can you shed a little bit of light of, like, what are they looking at? What are they looking for?

  3. Adrienne Cheatham· Host0:20

    And what we would like to see change.

  4. Joe Flamm· Host0:22

    Buckle in. This has been my beef for years, and I will die on this hill.

  5. Adrienne Cheatham· Host0:27

    But first, Chef's Cut Nation, we need 10 seconds of your time. Please take a moment to just rate and review the pod wherever you're listening. It really helps. All right, let's go.

  6. Joe Flamm· Host0:37

    [gentle music] It is short list season, Adrienne Cheatham.

  7. Adrienne Cheatham· Host0:47

    James Beard short list. It's an exciting time. Exciting time.

  8. Joe Flamm· Host0:49

    The list is short, and the feelings are high.

  9. Adrienne Cheatham· Host0:52

    I am so excited for this year. So many great people made the list, and I wanna be there to cheer them on, and I just wanna be there to hang out with all my friends. You included.

  10. Joe Flamm· Host1:00

    Yeah. Yeah, no, I, I think the most exciting thing when I see the short list every year is getting to see, uh, everybody who's coming to Chicago.

  11. Adrienne Cheatham· Host1:08

    Yeah.

  12. Joe Flamm· Host1:08

    You know, like Aisha's coming. Uh, my buddy Vinny from Cordelia in, uh, Cleveland got nominated on the short list.

  13. Adrienne Cheatham· Host1:15

    Nice.

  14. Joe Flamm· Host1:15

    Like, he's coming to town. Him and I did No Kid Hungry together in DC last summer, so super excited to have him back for it. Just a great list. It's such a cool event for the city of Chicago, you know what I mean? It's a huge one for us. We love it. So it's always exciting having all- the best of our industry

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