Which Alabama chefs, restaurants will be the next to win a James Beard Award?
Alabama chefs and restaurants have a long and glorious history at the James Beard Awards, which are often called “the Oscars of the food world.”
Previous James Beard winners include Birmingham chefs Frank Stitt, Chris Hastings and Dolester Miles, as well as Bessemer’s Bright Star, which has been recognized as an America’s Classic, and Birmingham’s Highlands Bar and Grill, which was named most outstanding restaurant in America in 2018.
And last year, chef Adam Evans of Birmingham’s Automatic Seafood and Oysters joined that elite group, winning best chef in the South.
The James Beard Foundation will announce its semifinalists for the 2023 chef and restaurant awards next Wednesday, Jan. 25, with the finalists coming on March 29 and the winners revealed on June 5.
So, who’s next? Which chef or restaurant is likely to bring yet another James Beard Award back home to Alabama?
If we were putting out money where our mouth is, here are the ones on whom we would be betting.
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David Bancroft is the executive chef and owner of Acre in Auburn.(Photo courtesy of Christin Bancroft; used with permission)
David Bancroft of Acre in Auburn
A Mobile native who grew up in Texas and graduated from Auburn University, David Bancroft helped transform the Auburn restaurant scene when he opened his farm-to-table restaurant Acre in 2013. In the years since, Bancroft has been a four-time James Beard Award semifinalist for best chef in the South, and, in 2017, he won the Food Network’s “Iron Chef Showdown.” His buddy Adam Evans, who had not yet opened Automatic Seafood and Oysters, was part of Bancroft’s winning chef team. In 2018, Bancroft opened a second Auburn restaurant, the Texas-style smokehouse Bow & Arrow.
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Bill Briand is the executive chef at Fisher’s Upstairs at Orange Beach Marina in Orange Beach.(AL.com file photo/Brian Kelly)
Bill Briand of Fisher’s Upstairs at Orange Beach Marina in Orange Beach
New Orleans native Bill Briand cooked alongside Crescent City culinary legends Emeril Lagasse and Donald Link before he came to Orange Beach to partner with restaurateur Johnny Fisher and become the executive chef at the coastal dining gem Fisher’s Upstairs at Orange Beach Marina and its more casual downstairs companion restaurant Fisher’s Dockside. Then, in 2018, Briand and Fisher partnered to open a third Orange Beach establishment, Playa at Sportsman’s Marina. Briand is a five-time James Beard Award semifinalist for best chef in the South.
RELATED: Fisher’s at Orange Beach Marina: ‘Great food in a great atmosphere’
Kelsey Barnard Clark is the executive chef and owner of KBC in Dothan.(Photo courtesy of Kelsey Barnard Clark; used with permission)
Kelsey Barnard Clark of KBC in Dothan
Dothan chef Kelsey Barnard Clark trained at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., and fine-tuned her fine-dining skills in the Michelin-starred New York City restaurants Café Boulud and Dovetail before she came home to Dothan to start her Kelsey Barnard Catering business in 2012 and later opened a restaurant, KBC. In 2019, Clark bested 14 other contestants to win the title of “Top Chef” on the Bravo series of the same name.
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Tim Hontzas, left, cuts up in the kitchen of Johnny’s Restaurant with lead line cook Ethan Mankins.(Photo by Beth Hontzas Photography; used with permission)
Timothy Hontzas of Johnny’s Restaurant in Homewood
Timothy Hontzas, who grew up in Jackson, Miss., worked alongside another James Beard winner, John Currence, at City Grocery in Oxford, Miss., before moving to Birmingham and later opening Johnny’s Restaurant in 2012. Playing off both his Greek heritage and his Southern roots, Hontzas has reinvented the old-school meat and three, with a menu that not only includes turnip greens, fried green tomatoes and chicken pot pie but also souvlaki, keftedes and fasolakia. Hontzas has been a semifinalist for best chef in the South for five consecutive years, and last year, he was named a finalist for that award alongside the eventual winner, Automatic Seafood’s Adam Evans, who is an occasional Sunday lunch guest at Johnny’s.
RELATED: Meet the Alabama chef and James Beard semifinalist who has redefined the meat and three
Emily and Rob McDaniel opened their contemporary Southern restaurant Helen on Second Avenue North in downtown Birmingham in August 2020.(Photo by Cary Norton; used with permission of Sprouthouse Agency)
Rob McDaniel of Helen in Birmingham
Rob McDaniel — who grew up in Haleyville and, like his friends and fellow chefs David Bancroft and Adam Evans, graduated from Auburn University — was formerly the executive chef at SpringHouse restaurant near Lake Martin for 10 years, during which time he was a five-time James Beard Award semifinalist for best chef in the South. In late 2020, McDaniel and his wife, Emily, opened a place of their own, the contemporary Southern restaurant Helen, in downtown Birmingham. A year later, Esquire magazine selected Helen as one of the best new restaurants in America.
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Archibald’s BBQ in Northport has been smoking since the late George and Betty Archibald opened their little cinderblock building in 1962.(Ben Flanagan/[email protected])
Archibald’s BBQ in Northport
Each year, the James Beard Foundation recognizes five or six long-standing dining gems with its America’s Classics Awards, which are given to “locally owned restaurants that have timeless appeal and are beloved regionally for quality food that reflects the character of its community.” The Bright Star in Bessemer was named an America’s Classic in 2010, but it is past time for another Alabama restaurant to get that same recognition. And we can think of few places that are more American or more classic – or that reflect the character of their communities — than Archibald’s BBQ in Northport, a soot-scorched cinderblock shrine that has been smoking some of the finest ribs known to man since the late George and Betty Archibald opened their place more than 60 years ago.
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Delores Banks, the owner of Eagle’s Restaurant, holds a pan of hot-out-of-the-oven cornbread muffins.(Bob Carlton/[email protected])
Eagle’s Restaurant in Birmingham
Speaking of America’s Classics, we have one more suggestion for the James Beard Foundation. Eagle’s Restaurant, a venerable soul food restaurant in the shadows of the ACIPCO plant in North Birmingham, has been around since 1951, and customers still line up outside the tiny café to pick up Styrofoam to-go containers laden with large helpings of collard greens, candied yams and neck bones. As one loyal Eagle’s patron puts it, “They’ve been around a while, and they ain’t never changed.”
RELATED: The story behind this essential Alabama soul food restaurant
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