Could the third time be the charm for Animae chef Tara Monsod?
On Wednesday morning, the San Diego chef was named a semifinalist for the James Beard Foundation’s 2026 Best Chef: California award. Monsod shares the category with Eric Bost, executive chef of Michelin-starred Lilo restaurant in Carlsbad. Also earning a semifinalist nod in the national category of Outstanding Bar is Realm of the 52 Remedies, the Asian-influenced speakeasy on Convoy Street.
For the past two years, Monsod has made it all the way to the final round without winning the trophy, but that was still an unprecedented achievement. Monsod is the only San Diego County chef who has ever made it to the final round of the Beard competition.
San Diego chef Tara Monsod a James Beard finalist once again for top chef in California
Launched in 1995, the James Beard Awards are recognized as the Oscars of the culinary world. They’re handed out each June in New York and honor the nation’s top resaturateurs, restaurants, bakeries, bars, chefs, bartenders, pastry chefs and more.
Monsod and Bost are among 20 California chefs to make the semifinals round this year. Monsod is executive chef for Puffer Malarkey Collective’s Asian-inspired fine-dining restaurant Animae restaurant in downtown San Diego and its sister restaurant Le Coq, a French/Asian-inspired venue in La Jolla.
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Since mid-2020, retaurant owner John Resnick and executive Chef Eric Bost have been working side by side to grow Resnick’s now four-restaurant company in Carlsbad Village. They include the Michelin-starred French nouvelle fine-dining spot Jeune et Jolie, the wood fire-focused American restaurant Campfire, the huge all-day bakery/restaurant/bar Wildland and the 22-seat fine-dining restaurant Lilo (pronounced “LIE-low”), which earned a Michelin star just two months after it opened last spring.
In a phone interview Wednesday, Monsod said she’s excited to have received another semifinalist honor and also grateful for how the news will bring new diners to the restaurant. “It does a lot for the restaurant in a good way. You become busier and more tired than the year before, but it’s a privilege to be this tired.”
Monsod said she is happy to see fellow Filipino chefs and Filipino restaurants around the country named to this year’s semfinalist list. She’s also pleased to be a nominee in the same category as her friend Daisy Ryan of Bell’s in Los Alamos, and with Bost at Lilo.
“Eric is very obviously a beyond talented guy doing great things with all the restuarants. He deserves the nomination and he’s a nice man, too,” she said. “I’m glad that I’ve got someone else with me this year to represent our city.”
Monsod said honors like this couldn’t happen without her sous chefs and the kitchen teams she oversees at Animae and Le Coq. Many of these staff members have followed Monsod from kitchen to kitchen as she has moved up in San Diego’s restaurant ladder.
“I’m very blessed to have a strong team,” she said. “I worked really hard in my entire career to build relationships that are long-lasting, and it’s nice to see it’s being paid back. Being a nice person, it actually works.”
Realm of the 52 Remedies beverage director Chris Lee makes a potion-style drink at the Convoy Street speakeasy in 2018. Realm earned a 2026 James Beard semifinalist national nomination for Outstanding Bar on Wednesday, Jan. 21. (Auda & Coudayre Photography)
Launched in San Diego’s Convoy District in December 2018, Realm of the 52 Remedies is a 45-seat speakeasy bar hidden inside Common Theory Public House. It’s the creation of beverage director Chris Lee, a native of South Korea, whose earned his first award nomination in 2016 for his Old Fashioned cocktail at a bar in Seoul. Jemil Sadangsal and Dominique Jackson are Realm’s lead bartenders.
The bar’s concept was inspired by the stimulating and healthful qualities of Chinese medicinal remedy potions, but designed as a futuristic, Asian-inspired speakeasy bar. Guests enter the Realm through a faux apothecary shop.
Some of the bar’s drinks include the shiitake mushroom- flavored Opium Den, the green tea-infused Jade Empress and the Sunomono, made with Matsutake Shoyu, shiso and plum vinegar and Suntory Toki whiskey.
The next round of the competition on March 31 will winnow the lists down to five finalists in each category. The final awards will be handed out in New York City on June 15.
For the full national list of semifinalists, visit jamesbeard.org/stories/james-beard-award-semifinalists-2026.