Even in the midst of a pandemic, there’s something oddly reassuring about the fact that the Beard Awards keep on ticking along. Especially for a writer, these various awards (Beard, Michelin, Food & Wine) help mark the passage of the year, and add a bit of normalcy to our otherwise timeless lives. And while the actual awards have been postponed (they’re happening in September, instead of May), the final list of nominees was released yesterday. Obviously, I have thoughts.

First, I’ll get on my usual soapbox: Best Chef: Great Lakes is broken, and the fact that the Beard Awards continue to fail to remedy that makes me slightly nuts. How is it broken? I’ve written about it many times before (including with math) going all they way back to 2014. If you want a detailed analysis, look at this Chicago Magazine article I wrote in 2018, but the basic point is that once the process moves from semi-finalists to finalists, the Great Lakes category is, almost inevitably, the “Chicago” category. And while New York City gets its own category of awards in order to avoid the problem of knocking out the entire Northeast region of the culinary nation, Chicago doesn’t get the same treatment, leaving chefs in the other Great Lakes states… out of luck.

This year is a perfect example – a wide range of chefs were represented in the semi-finals for Great Lakes, but the final nominees are all from Chicago. I’ve heard from committee members that this issue has been discussed, but no changes are forthcoming. Oh well.

What about the actual nominees? Six Chicago chefs made the list: Jason Hammel (of Lula), Gene Kato (of Momotaro), Noah Sandoval (of Oriole), John and Karen Shields (of Smyth), Erick Williams (of Virtue) and Lee Wolen (of Boka). A very solid list of excellent chefs (and, to be honest, pretty great people). However, nothing particularly surprising. Who am I pulling for? See below.

Another odd foible of the Beard Awards (unlike other sorts of, say, movie awards) is that chefs, shocker, continue to exist and cook things year after year, so the good ones tend to get nominated over and over and over until they win. Famously, Mindy Segal managed to rack up five nominations before she finally won, the Susan Lucci of the food world. Wolen, Sandoval and Hammel were nominated last year, Wolen was nominated the year before that (2018), and the year before that (2017), and the year before that (2016).

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For god’s sake, give Wolen the damn award already.

The other issues with the habit of many repeat nominees are that it makes the awards slightly less useful for consumers, and leaves out new talent - for whom a Beard nomination can make or break their restaurant. I love using the Beard awards as a roadmap to dining in a new city, but nominating the same chefs over and over make that less appealing. That said, obviously these awards are about recognizing professional achievement, so perhaps use a local award (like, say, the Jean Banchet Awards?) for your dining pleasure.

What about the rest of the Beard noms, outside of Best Chef: Great Lakes? Its’ taken me so long to get to them because… there aren’t many. Lost Lake was nominated for Outstanding Bar Program, and Spiaggia was nominated for Outstanding Wine Program. And that’s it. A pretty sad year for us. At least I won’t have to pay much attention during the awards parties and I can just drink with my friends? Assuming any of us are allowed to congregate in the same room.