Two California chef-duos have gotten a major endorsement from one of the restaurant industry\u2019s most prominent organizations.<\/p>\n
The James Beard Foundation has named its class of 2026-2027\u00a0TasteTwenty chefs, recognizing its members as \u201cones to watch\u201d from 20 different markets across the country. Among them are the chefs of two restaurants from California: San Francisco\u2019s Maria Isabel<\/a>\u00a0and Los Angeles\u2019\u00a0Little Fish<\/a>. The TasteTwenty series, which will produce its signature Taste America events in each of the selected chefs\u2019 hometowns, aims to \u201cshowcase the centrality of American food culture and celebrate diverse communities, leading the way to a future culinary industry where all can thrive,\u201d according to the foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n Chefs Laura and Sayat Ozyilmaz from Maria Isabel, who were named James Beard Award semifinalists in 2024 and 2025 for their popular restaurant Dalida<\/a>, opened Maria Isabel in Presidio Heights in early March. Unlike Dalida, which opened in the Presidio<\/a> in 2023 and quickly became a tough reservation to snag thanks to its bold Mediterranean flavors, Maria Isabel explores Laura\u2019s Mexican heritage. (Laura and\u00a0Sayat previously worked at Saison and Mourad, respectively, and the couple opened the now-shuttered Mediterranean restaurant Noosh in 2019.)<\/p>\n Maria Isabel is a highly personal restaurant named for Laura\u2019s sister and mother. It explores the flavors of Guerrero and\u00a0Sinaloa, the place where Laura\u2019s father grew up.<\/p>\n \u201cI think as a chef you go through different phases of what you want to cook,\u201d Laura told SFGATE in March. \u201cI never wanted to identify myself as a Latina chef that could cook only Mexican food. I always wanted to learn multiple cuisines.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Anna\u00a0Sonenshein and Niki Vahle, both alums of now-shuttered seafood restaurant Son of a Gun, started LA\u2019s Little Fish as a pandemic pop-up that served fried fish sandwiches. The pair first opened a window in Echo Park before debuting a sit-down restaurant in Melrose Hill<\/a> in late 2025, where the two serve elegant, sustainability-minded seafood dishes like a \u201cbeach sandwich\u201d (soy-cured mussels and potato chips on ciabatta) and stuffed cabbage with abalone rice.<\/p>\n \u201cThe coolest thing is that we already have regulars,\u201d Sonenshein told SFGATE in January about the store\u2019s opening in Melrose Hill, which has become one of the city\u2019s hottest dining destinations. \u201cIt feels like \u2018Cheers.\u2019 We\u2019ve been so welcomed.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the James Beard Foundation, the chefs selected for TasteTwenty must have talents beyond the kitchen as \u201cchampions of positive change \u2014 from supporting sustainable agriculture, investing in their teams, elevating quality ingredients, advocating for a more resilient food system, and more.\u201d Last year\u2019s selections included Azalina Eusope from Azalina\u2019s<\/a> in San Francisco and Vivian Ku from LA\u2019s Joy and Pine & Crane.<\/p>\n The\u00a0TasteTwenty series will hold events in LA in October 2026 and San Francisco in February 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two California chef-duos have gotten a major endorsement from one of the restaurant industry\u2019s most prominent organizations. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105,4991,2008,106625],"class_list":["post-348686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sfgfood","tag-sfgla","tag-sfglafood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}