{"id":132076,"date":"2026-01-21T16:36:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T16:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/132076\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T16:36:07","slug":"6-dallas-restaurants-chefs-and-bars-are-james-beard-semifinalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/132076\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Dallas Restaurants, Chefs and Bars are James Beard Semifinalists"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"Gabe
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tGabe Sanchez has been nominated for a Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service for his work at Midnight Rambler. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Kathy Tran<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an interesting time to be a restaurant award in Dallas. We have our list of Michelin-recommended restaurants<\/a>, which have zero overlap (well, a tiny bit \u2026 keep reading) with the James Beard Semifinalist selections. Tatsu and Mamani are good enough for a star, but not for a James Beard Semifinalist nomination. <\/p>\n

Lucia<\/a> is the only restaurant occupying a tiny sliver of a Venn diagram: the Bishop Arts restaurant is a Bib Gourmand selection in the Texas Michelin Guide, and its baker, Maggie Huff, is a Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Pastry Chef or Bakery.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s wonderful to see Far-Out<\/a>, the quonset hut near Fair Park, get a nod for Best New Restaurant. Five-time James Beard nominee chef Misti Norris is the culinary director there. <\/p>\n

There are a couple of duplicates from last year. In 2025, Mabo<\/a>, an eight-seat yakitori omakase, was a finalist for Best New Restaurant, and this year, its chef, Masayuki Otaka, is a semifinalist for\u00a0Best Chef Texas.<\/p>\n

Also, Starship Bagel was a finalist for Outstanding Bakery in 2025 and is a semifinalist again this year. Patrick Hicks of\u00a0Smoke\u2019N Ash BBQ<\/a>\u00a0in Arlington was a semifinalist last year and has been nominated again. <\/p>\n

Here are all the other restaurants, bars, bakers and shakers on the list: <\/p>\n

Best New Restaurant
Far-Out <\/p>\n

Outstanding Bakery
Starship Bagel<\/p>\n

Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker
Maggie Huff, Lucia<\/p>\n

Outstanding Bar
Ayahuasca Cantina<\/p>\n

Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service
Gabe Sanchez, Midnight Rambler<\/p>\n

Best Chef: Texas
Masayuki Otaka, Mabo
Patrick Hicks, Smoke\u2019N Ash BBQ, Arlington
Scott Girling, Osteria II Muro, Denton<\/p>\n

Another notable selection is longtime Dallas chef Graham Dodds for Best Chef Southwest (AZ, NM, NV and OK) for his restaurant in the New Mexico desert, NOSA Restaurant and Inn<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gabe Sanchez has been nominated for a Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service for his work at Midnight Rambler.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2595,102,104,103,5177],"class_list":["post-132076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-awards-accolades","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-national-spotlight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}