The James Beard Awards were announced last night in Chicago. Two Kentucky chefs were in the running for Best Chef: Southeast. The winner announced last night, however, was Jake Howell of Peninsula in Nashville.

The CJ, of course, was late to recognize this and published a story yesterday, essentially not giving the Kentuckians a chance to grab some early attention and draw some business.

So, this is what they put up:

Louisville chef Noam Bilitzer, from MeeshMeesh Mediterranean and Sara Bradley, from freight house in Paducah, have each been nominated for a 2025 James Beard Award in the Best Chefs in America Southeast category.

A win for either would make them the first chef from Kentucky to take home the prestigious honor.

The “Best Chef: Southeast” category includes chefs in Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia. The other finalists in that category include chefs in Nashville, Asheville, and West Columbia, South Carolina.

A handful of Kentucky chefs has been named as semifinalists or nominees multiple times, including Ouita Michel (9) of Midway/Lexington and Kathy Cary (8), Anthony Lamas (4) and Edward Lee (10) of Louisville, but none have cinched a win. Lee did, however, win the James Beard Foundation Humanitarian of the Year Award in 2024 for his work with the LEE Initiative, which promotes diversity, equity, and sustainability in the restaurant industry by empowering culinary employment, supporting inclusive mentorship and training, and conducting research to address critical industry challenges.

I’ll add MeeshMeesh to the list of fine dining establishments in Louisville, but it would have helped to know that it was in the running for a prestigious award much earlier.

One other note. It wouldn’t have been that hard for the CJ to say who James Beard was, and why he was so important in the dining world. I’ll help them out. From Britannica:

James Beard (born May 5, 1903, Portland, Oregon, U.S.—died January 23, 1985, New York, New York) was an American culinary expert who championed simple American and English dishes and wrote one of the first serious books on outdoor cooking. In 1945, he became the first chef to demonstrate cooking on network television. Through the James Beard Cooking School, opened in 1955 in Greenwich Village, with a second school added later in Seaside, Oregon, he influenced such future chefs as Julia Child and Craig Claiborne (b. 1920—d. 2000).