{"id":132453,"date":"2026-01-21T21:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T21:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/132453\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T21:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T21:22:09","slug":"houston-restaurants-and-chefs-receive-12-semifinalist-nods-for-2026-james-beard-awards-houston-public-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/132453\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston restaurants and chefs receive 12 semifinalist nods for 2026 James Beard Awards \u2013 Houston Public Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"Chef<\/p>\n

Macie Kelly\/Houston Public Media <\/p>\n

Chef Hugo Ortega stands at the entrance of his restaurant Hugo’s, which opened in 2002. He\u2019s nominated for outstanding restaurateur at the 2026 James Beard Awards.<\/p>\n

Semifinalists for the 2026 James Beard Awards, among the most celebrated culinary awards in the United States, were unveiled on Wednesday. Houston-area restaurants and chefs racked up 12 semifinalist nominations.<\/p>\n

Those include nominations for outstanding overall restaurateur, outstanding chef, best new restaurant and best new bar, some of the highest-achieving awards from the James Beard Foundation.<\/p>\n

The foundation also presents awards by region for best chef. Texas qualifies as its own region, where Houston scored four nominations.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Hello, Houston!<\/a> daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Thomas Bille of Belly of the Beast in Spring wins James Beard Award for best Texas chef<\/a><\/p>\n

This year\u2019s finalists will be announced on March 31. Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in Chicago on June 15.<\/p>\n

Here are the Houston area’s semifinalists for the 2026 James Beard Awards:<\/p>\n

Outstanding Restaurateur: Hugo Ortega and Tracy Vaught<\/a>, H-Town Restaurant Group (Hugo’s, Xochi, Urbe and others)
\nOutstanding Chef: Manabu Horiuchi, Katami<\/a>
\nEmerging Chef: Max Lapp\u00e9 and Jacques Varon, Baso<\/a>
\nEmerging Chef: Adrian Torres, Maximo<\/a>
\nBest New Restaurant: Agnes and Sherman<\/a>
\nBest New Bar: Lee\u2019s<\/a>
\nOutstanding Professional in Beverage Service: June Rodil, March<\/a>
\nOutstanding Professional in Cocktail Service: Kristine Nguyen, Bludorn<\/a>
\nBest Chef, Texas:<\/p>\n

The full list of semifinalists can be found on the James Beard Foundation’s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Beyond Houston, several other Texas cities secured semifinalist nominations from the foundation, including one for outstanding chef for David Kirkland and Ernest Servantes of Burnt Bean Co. in Seguin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Macie Kelly\/Houston Public Media Chef Hugo Ortega stands at the entrance of his restaurant Hugo’s, which opened in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1174,49,56,19337,58,57,14118,56582,56699,66,223,67,56700],"class_list":["post-132453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-arts-culture","tag-food","tag-houston","tag-houston-food","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-houston-restaurants","tag-james-beard-awards","tag-james-beard-foundation","tag-local","tag-news","tag-restaurant","tag-where-to-eat-in-houston"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132453","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=132453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}