Maximo
Maximo’s Adrian Torres was named Best Emerging Chef at the 2026 James Beard Awards.
Three chefs from the Houston area were honored Monday night as James Beard Award winners, with a local chef winning a national category for only the second time.
Adrian Torres of Maximo, a Mexican restaurant in West University Place, was named Best Emerging Chef. Torres is a DACA recipient, according to the Maximo website, and he spoke about his Mexican heritage during his acceptance speech in Chicago.
“I am proud to be an immigrant,” he said.
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Houston’s only other winner in a national James Beard Award category was in 2022, when owner Alba Huerta and Julep prevailed in Outstanding Bar Program.
The awards are considered one of the highest honors in the culinary industry. And this year, two other Houston chefs were recognized in a regional category as Evelyn Garcia and Henry Lu of JŪN won Best Chef in Texas.
Houston-area chefs have now claimed the Texas award in three of the last four years. The 2025 honor went to Thomas Bille of Belly of the Beast in Spring, while Benchawan Jabthong Painter of Thai restaurant Street to Kitchen won the award in 2023.
Ope Amosu of ChopnBlock also was a finalist this year for Best Chef in Texas. Houston’s other finalists were the H-Town Restaurant Group’s Hugo Ortega and Tracy Vaught, who were up for Outstanding Restaurateur; Agnes and Sherman in the Best New Restaurant category; and June Rodil of March in the category for Outstanding Professional in Beverage Service.
Chris Shepherd’s Houston-based Southern Smoke Foundation was one of five recipients of this year’s Impact Awards, which were created last year. Since 2017, the foundation has donated more than $16 million in emergency relief funding to food-and-beverage workers across the United States while also providing more than 10,000 workers with access to mental health services, according to the James Beard Foundation.