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Winners of the 2010 Beard Awards-2010Winners of the 2010 Beard Awards-2010

NYC chefs, restaurants win big

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

May 4, 2010

3 Min Read
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Bret Thorn

Timothy Hollingsworth, chef de cuisine of The French Laundry in Yountville, Calif., was named “Rising Star” of the year by the James Beard Foundation, which handed out its restaurant and chef awards Monday night.

Marea in New York City was named best new restaurant.

New York chefs and restaurateurs won many of the other national prizes from the foundation in what are widely regarded as the country’s most prestigious restaurant awards. New York-based Tom Colicchio was named outstanding chef of the year; Daniel, also in New York, was named outstanding restaurant; and New York-based restaurateur Keith McNally won the award for outstanding restaurateur. Jean Georges restaurant in New York got the nod for outstanding wine service.

Alinea in Chicago won the award for outstanding service, and Nicole Plue, pastry chef of Redd in Yountville, Calif., was named outstanding pastry chef of the year.
John and Doug Shafer of Shafer Vineyards in Napa, Calif., won the wine and spirits professionals award.

New York restaurants also won the design and graphics awards: Andre Kikoski won the restaurant design award for The Wright, and Pandiscio Co. was given the outstanding restaurant graphics award for The Standard Grill.

Regional chef awards:

  • Koren Grieveson of Avec in Chicago won for the Great Lakes region (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio).

  • Jeff Michaud of Osteria in Philadelphia won in the Mid-Atlantic (Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington, D.C.).

  • Alexander Roberts of Alma in Minneapolis took the Midwest award (Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin).

  • Daniel Humm of Eleven Madison Park won for best chef in New York City.

  • Clark Frasier and Mark Gaier of Arrows in Ogunquit, Maine, won for the Northeast (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New York state, Rhode Island and Vermont).

  • Jason Wilson of Crush in Seattle won in the Northwest (Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming).

  • David Kinch of Manresa in Los Gatos, Calif., won in the Pacific (California and Hawaii).

  • Michael Schwartz of Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink in Miami won in the South (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi).

  • Sean Brock, chef of McCrady’s in Charleston, S.C., won for the Southeast (Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia).

  • Claude Le Tohic of Joel Robuchon at MGM Grand Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas won in the Southwest (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah).

  • There were few surprises in the awards. Hollingsworth, who represented the United States in the 2009 Bocuse d’Or competition, is the second chef de cuisine from The French Laundry to win the “Rising Star” award. Corey Lee won that award in 2006.

  • Grant Achatz, another French Laundry alumnus, won that award in 2003 when he was the chef at Trio in Evanston, Ill. He is now the chef-owner of Alinea; its award last night was Achatz’s fifth Beard Award.

  • Humm’s prize was the 21st Beard Award given to a chef or restaurant in Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group.

  • Daniel Boulud, chef-owner of Daniel, and his restaurants have won nine awards.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected].

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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