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Seattle Chefs and Restaurants Miss Out at the 2025 James Beard Awards
Womp womp. For the fifth year in a row, Seattle took home a goose egg at the James Beard Awards.
The Beards are the country's most prestigious food world prizes, often compared to the Oscars. (Like the Academy Awards, there's a swanky ceremony attended by cultural luminaries.) Every year Seattle chefs and restaurants earn some sort of recognition from James Beard judges in the form of semifinalist nods and nominations.
In 2025, three Seattle-area chefs and restaurants scored nominations: Atoma for Best New Restaurant, Archipelago for Outstanding Hospitality, and Jay Blackinton of Houlme on Orcas Island for Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific Region. While it's true what they say, it is an honor to be nominated, none of the three wound up winning.
This constitutes something of a drought for the city. In the 2010s a few Seattle chefs won Beards in the Northwest and Pacific category, most recently Brady Williams in 2019 (when the Tomo owner was still working at Canlis). In 2020 Rupee won a Beard for its design, and that same year Oriental Mart won an America's Classics Award, which are given out through a separate process. Since then, however, there's been nada.
For a full list of James Beard Award winners from 2025, go here.
Disclosure: Some Vox Media staff members are part of the voting body for the James Beard Awards. Eater is partnering with the James Beard Foundation to livestream the awards in 2025. All editorial content is produced independently of the James Beard Foundation. See More:
