January 22, 2025
Mike Prince/PETER BRESLOW CONSULTING & PUBLIC RELATIONS
Fishtown Thai restaurant Kalaya is a 2025 James Beard Award finalist in the Outstanding Restaurant category. The photo above shows a bowl of Khao Soi made at Kalaya.
The James Beard Foundation revealed the semifinalists for its annual culinary awards on Wednesday, putting more than a dozen Philly restaurants or chefs in the running for the prestigious honors.
This year's semifinalists include a mix of familiar faces and new contenders among the eight chefs and six restaurants to make the cut in Philly and the surrounding suburbs. In the Outstanding Restaurant category, Fishtown's Kalaya is up for the award two years after chef Nok Suntaranon won best chef in the mid-Atlantic region for her Southern Thai kitchen. Kalaya previously made the New York Times' list of best new restaurants in 2023.
MORE: Bacon Brothers to play hometown show at Rivers Casino in February
Suntaranon published a cookbook last year and appeared on an episode of the Netflix docuseries "Chef's Table," where she talked about her upbringing in Thailand and her path to opening Kalaya at its original location in the Italian Market.
The chef at Cambodian noodle house Mawn, the restaurant that took Kalaya's former space in the Italian Market, also got a nod this year from the James Beard Foundation. Phila Lorn, who opened the BYOB two years ago with his wife, Rachel, is among the semifinalists for Emerging Chef. Phila and Rachel each had long track records in the city's culinary scene before opening their first restaurant, including past roles at Will BYOB, Stephen Starr's Pod in University City and the former Stock in Fishtown.
Greg Vernick, who previously won a James Beard Award in 2017 for best chef in the mid-Atlantic category, is now one of 20 semifinalists for Outstanding Chef at the national level. Vernick got the nod this year for Vernick Fish, his oyster bar at the Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia in Center City.
At the Bok Building in South Philly, the boulangerie and patisserie Machine Shop is a semifinalist in the Outstanding Bakery category. Owner Emily Riddell was named one of Food & Wine's best new chefs after Machine Shop opened in 2022, and the French bakery also was listed among Eater's best new restaurants in America that year.
Below are the rest of this year's James Beard Award semifinalists in Philadelphia:
•Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker: Abigail Dahan of Provenance, the French seafood restaurant in Society Hill.
•Outstanding Hospitality: Little Fish, the BYOB in Queen Village.
•Outstanding Wine and Beverage: Càphê Roasters, the Vietnamese specialty coffee roastery in Kensington.
•Outstanding Bar: The Lovers Bar at Center City's Friday Saturday Sunday, which won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant in 2023.
•Best New Bar (new category): Kampar Kongsi, the Malaysian restaurant in South Philly that opened as a successor to chef Ange Branca's former Saté Kampar.
•Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic: Juan Carlos Aparicio, of Passyunk Square Mexican restaurant El Chingón; Yun Fuentes, of Rittenhouse Square Latin American restaurant Bolo; Jesse Ito, of Queen Village's Royal Sushi & Izakaya (Ito was nominated in this category each of the last two years); Amanda Shulman, of the reservation-only Her Place Supper Club in Center City (Shulman was nominated in the emerging chef category two years ago); and Anthony Andiario of West Chester’s Andiaro. Antimo DiMeo, of the Wilmington Italian restaurant Bardea, also is a semifinalist. The category covers Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.
Philadelphia earned four big wins at the 2023 James Beard Awards but struck out last year.
The James Beard Foundation will announce the 2025 finalists in all categories on April 2, followed by the Restaurant and Chef Awards in Chicago on June 16.
