Category: James Beard Foundation (JBF) Award Nominees & Winners

2022 James Beard Foundation - "Best Restaurant" Semifinalist2023 James Beard Foundation - Best Restaurant SemifinalistAmericanDog FriendlyFarm to TableRating: N/R (Not Rated)United StatesUtah

Hell’s Backbone Grill – Boulder, Utah

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

“I’m going to hell! The worst place in the world! With devils and those caves and the ragged clothing! And the heat! My God, the HEAT!” ~Elaine Benes (Seinfeld: Season 9, Episode 16) Most of us would describe Hell in similarly terrifying terms (albeit without the humor) as Elaine Benes did during a memorable episode of Seinfeld back in 1998.  The Hell that existed in Elaine’s mind  was indeed “the worst place in the world!”  If Hell can be so nightmarish, can Hells Backbone be any better?  Are there devils wearing ragged clothing and living in caves in Hells Backbone?  Not in the Hells Background we visited in June, 2024. Hells Backbone in Southwestern Utah is a spectacularly rugged area bridging the towering Boulder Mountain on the north and the breathtaking canyons to the south cut by the Escalante River over millions of years.  The Hells Backbone Road meanders through and past ridges and unearthly mountain contours that stagger the imagination. It winds from juniper and sage desert high up into the lush pine and aspen forest on Boulder Mountain and the highest plateau in North America.  The Hells Backbone Road is one of the most scenic–albeit trecherous during stormy…

2024 James Beard Foundation "Best New Restaurant" SemifinalistAsianFusionJames Beard Foundation (JBF) Award Nominees & WinnersNew MexicoRating: ExceptionalSanta Fe

ALKEME AT OPEN KITCHEN – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

“And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.” ~Khalil Gibran, The Prophet Very few of us can identify with the profundity of Khalil Gibran’s immortal poem “On Joy and Sorrow”  as well as Hue-Chan Karels, owner of the Santa Fe restaurant that is reimagining Asian cuisine.   Outwardly the beautiful entrepreneur is as buoyant and joyful as can be.  In fact, what might be her restaurant’s “mission statement” reflects that joy:   “We are joy makers who believe in the magic of culinary experiences.  Our passion is to create and curate inspired, original, unforgettable gatherings for the joyful celebration of human connection wherever they can be imagined.”  Before she became a joy maker, however, she had to surmount deep sorrows that carved into her being. Hue-Chan was nine years old when she and her family fled Vietnam.  Carrying only a small shoulder bag with $500, personal documents and negatives of family photos, the displaced family was sent to Guam then Camp Pendleton, California before relocating to Michigan. From a child’s perspective, the family’s…

2023 James Beard Foundation "Best Chef - Southwest" SemifinalistBreakfast BurritosDog FriendlyFood TruckJames Beard Foundation (JBF) Award Nominees & WinnersMexicanNew MexicoRating: ExcellentSanta FeTacos

El Chile Toreado – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Until 2008, the notion of gourmet culinary offerings being proffered by a mobile conveyance was unheard of.  Prior to then, food trucks were (often rightfully so) known as “roach coaches” or even worse “barf buggies.”  Roach coaches were an eyesore, a medium of last resort usually parked at construction sites, manufacturing plants, public parks or basic military training bases where captive trainees had no alternative.  Roach coaches were a pure convenience with no pretense to gourmet (or even good) cuisine.  Most of them hawked simple fare such as hot dogs and tacos as well as potato chips, cigarettes, candy and chewing gum. During the era of “convenience stores on wheels,” food trucks weren’t worried about building a brand.  Nor were they concerned with repeat business or customer loyalty. There was no such thing as social media at the time and there were no Yelp reviews. These unsightly vehicles (many with actual roaches in tow) were in business to serve a location for a short time period. After at construction job ended at one site, for example,  they would simply move onto the next profitable location and the process would continue.  These “convenience stores on wheels” served a purpose, but during…

2024 James Beard Foundation (JBF) Outstanding Restaurant FinalistFine DiningNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)Santa Fe

The Compound – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:37 AM

“It’s good…New Mexico good.”  As a proud New Mexican, it galls me to hear apologists demean, denigrate and otherwise concede (quite erroneously) that restaurants  in the Land of Enchantment are good, but not as good as restaurants elsewhere.  It’s as if New Mexico’s restaurants can’t possibly be as good because…well, we’re New Mexico and we’re just not supposed to be very good.  Look at where we rank in so many quality of life categories.  It’s akin to University of New Mexico (UNM) Lobo basketball fans being content to make it to the “Sweet 16,” a goal no Lobos team has ever achieved. My counterargument is why the #$%*&! can’t a restaurant in New Mexico be considered one of, if not THE most outstanding restaurant in the Fruited Plains.  Similarly, why can’t the Lobos blow past the Sweet 16 and win an NCAA championship in basketball?  It’s as if a Pygmalion effect (low expectations lead to poor performance) has cast a pall over the Land of Enchantment and we’ve become the “Land of the Mediocre.” Channeling Howard Beale from the Academy Award-winning movie Network “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more!”  The next time someone…

2024 James Beard Foundation "Best Chef - Southwest" SemifinalistAlbuquerqueFine DiningNew MexicanNew Mexico

Level 5 Rooftop Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

For a nearly four-hundred year period, the Anasazi civilization which preceded New Mexico’s Pueblo cultures achieved the pinnacle of its technological and cultural advancement at a magnificent,  deep gorge called Chaco Canyon. Within the walls of Chaco Canyon, construction of multi-level buildings sprung up, some structures accommodating as many as  800 rooms. Not surprisingly, lower walls had to be made massive in order to support heavy stone walls up to five floors high.  It took remarkable planning to locate doors, passageways, kivas and other architectural features.  At five stories high,  Pueblo Bonito was the largest structure and the inspiration for Hotel Chaco’s spectacular restaurant Level 5  in Albuquerque’s Sawmill District. In 2017, local developer Heritage Hotels launched Hotel Chaco on Bellamah Avenue in the Sawmill District.  Formerly a 110-acre complex, the District once milled lumber, doors and shingles, at one point serving as the largest manufacturing company in the Southwest. Today there are few, if any, vestiges of the District’s historic past.  Instead, the area has exploded, metamorphosing from a lusterless industrial area to a dynamic hub for hospitality and dining.   Hotel Chaco is at the heart of the changes.  An eighty-million dollar project, the Hotel is unlike any…

2022 James Beard Foundation - "Best Chef - Southwest" SemifinalistAlbuquerqueJames Beard Foundation (JBF) Award Nominees & WinnersMexicanNew MexicoRating: Excellent

La Guelaguetza – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno10:39 PM

“I am tenacious. And I love to eat.  I go into the field and see some delectable things they’re cooking, wild plants perhaps, and think, ‘Oh my God, I have to write about this.’ I just think it’s insatiable curiosity. To me, life is a continuous process of learning.” ~Diana Kennedy As an essayer of the Land of Enchantment’s culinary condition–primarily as it’s expressed by its restaurants–I’ve always marveled at the passion and appetite of Diana Kennedy who built a lifelong career by compiling, publishing and teaching indigenous Mexican recipes.   Just as Julia Child reduced the nuances and inflections of French cuisine and culinary techniques for home cooks, Diana introduced home cooks to highly developed, often centuries-old culinary traditions they didn’t even know existed.  Emanating largely from indigenous Mesoamerican cultures that predated Columbus, those culinary traditions might have been lost to time were it not for Diana Kennedy who wrote several classic books on authentic Mexican cooking. A case could easily be made that before Diana Kennedy, much of the fruited plain perceived Mexican food as some homogeneous combo plate brimming with rolled enchiladas topped with a brownish “sauce” just a shade darker than the refried beans on the plate;…

2024 James Beard Foundation "Outstanding Bakery" Finalist2024 James Beard Foundation "Outstanding Bakery" SemifinalistAlbuquerqueBakeryJames Beard Foundation (JBF) Award Nominees & WinnersNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)

Burque Bakehouse – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

In 2023 Psychology Today profiled an Albuquerque baker who knows the mind-body connection very well.  Pratt Morales, long-time co-owner (with his son Chris) of the Golden Crown Panaderia believes he’ll live to be 130 years young.  You’ll believe it, too, after reading the profile.  Mr. Morales is an 85-year-old going on 22 who’s as spry and fit mentally as he is physically.  At an age when our couch potato lifestyles will mean an early grave for many of us, he can perform one or two hand cartwheels.  The secret of his longevity, he says is a focus on flexibility exercises and watching his diet. Chinese philosopher Confucius  is credited with an idiom that defines Mr. Morales: ““Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.”   It’s not a job many of us would–and can–do.  It’s a job that takes a physical, mental and emotional toll on body and mind.   It’s a job that starts each day long before sunrise and ends after most of us have gone home.   Day in and day out, bakers are on their feet under extreme heat: bending, lifting, kneading, calculating and pushing on under the weight of a task…

2024 James Beard Foundation "Best Chef - Southwest" SemifinalistBakeryJames Beard Foundation (JBF) Award Nominees & WinnersNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)Santa FeSlovak

Dolina – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:02 AM

For my dad, a professional educator for thirty years, it wasn’t enough that his children learned how to spell cat, dog and all the other traditional first words kids learn to spell in school.  He taught us how to spell Czechoslovakia, rhinoceros, aesthetic and other multisyllabic words.  He also taught us what those words meant.  Being kids, we giggled when he taught us about Lake Titicaca in the Andes of Bolivia, but marveled at its size and altitude.  Because of his teaching, one of my sisters could (at age seven) recite the alphabet backwards as quickly as most people can recite it forward.  Two of my sisters were double-promoted and both finished high school as valedictorians. My dad didn’t teach his precocious brood so we could show off in school, but to inculcate a love of learning.  It’s served the six of us very well.  Every one of my brothers and sisters has been highly successful in their chosen professions and in life (I’m the family dunce).   You might think learning about Czechoslovakia didn’t have any value, but it gave me a lifetime of curiosity about other nations and cultures.  It’s a curiosity that extends to the cuisine of exotic…

2024 James Beard Foundation "Best Chef - Southwest" SemifinalistArizonaDog FriendlyJames Beard Foundation (JBF) Award Nominees & WinnersMexicanRating: N/R (Not Rated)United States

Cocina Chiwas – Tempe, Arizona

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Chef Armando Hernandez is my new hero.  In an interview with the Phoenix New Times, he was asked about “authentic Mexican cuisine.”  His retort was scathingly brilliant: “It’s very difficult for me to have these conversations, especially among our own people, about what’s considered authentic.  “They’ll be like, ‘Well, my Grandma-’ and I’m like, yeah, I’m not your Grandma though.”  Those of us who grew up in the Land of Enchantment when our distinctive cuisine was widely labeled “Mexican” remain somewhat in the dark about differences between New Mexican cuisine and that of our Southern neighbor.   It was only rather recently that cognoscenti determined New Mexican cuisine is different enough from Mexico’s to warrant its own label–New Mexican. Perhaps because of the mislabeling, commonly held misperceptions persist as to what constitutes Mexican food. Most New Mexicans insist virtually every one of our sacrosanct dishes has to include red and (or) green chile.  That brownish-red stuff Mexican restaurants serve doesn’t look or taste like the “real stuff” that comes from Hatch, Chimayo, Deming, Lemitar and other communities whose sacred earth bestows its blessings on us every autumn.  New Mexicans tend not to know what mole is.  Chile that’s gone bad?…

2024 James Beard Foundation "Best Chef - Southwest" SemifinalistArizonaDog FriendlyJames Beard Foundation (JBF) Award Nominees & WinnersMediterraneanRating: N/R (Not Rated)United States

Source – Gilbert, Arizona

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

When Chef Claudio Urciuoli posed for a photograph with Source’s baker Ryan and chef Trevor, he sported a smile.  I joked with him about his stern countenance and he assured me that he really does have a sense of humor.  Despite the dissolution of his partnership at Pa’La, the acclaimed chef has every reason to smile.  He’s once again doing what he wants to do, operating a restaurant whose approach and raison d’etre are encapsulated in this statement from the restaurant’s website:  We are an ingredient driven, community centered, counter service restaurant, wine bar, and retail shop. Chef Urciuoli does indeed have a sense of humor and a personal warmth that really came across during our conversation.  He shared his vision for a casual Mediterranean restaurant where it’s all about the quality of ingredients.  He pointed out that Source is a counter-service affair with baked goods front and center at the counter and a menu suspended overhead.  All tableware is compostable save for wine glasses.  That speaks to his commitment to doing his part for the environment.  It irks him how relatively little the water-starved Valley is doing to conserve water.  He also believes much more could be done to…

2024 James Beard Foundation "Best Chef - Southwest" Semifinalist2024: James Beard Foundation "Best Chef - Southwest" Finalist2026 James beard Foundation: "Best Chef - Southwest" SemifinalistAlbuquerqueFarm to TableFine DiningJames Beard Foundation (JBF) Award Nominees & WinnersNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)

Mesa Provisions – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

When I started Gil’s Thrilling…way back in 1996, my goals were to celebrate New Mexico’s restaurant scene and to provide an escape from the mean-spirited dialogue so prevalent among petulant politicians who have long forgotten they work for us.  I’ve tried not to lash out against politics through this medium I’m privileged to steward, but sometimes my frustration leaks out.  For those occasions I apologize.  I promise to try harder to focus on the joy I experience every time I dine with good friends.   When I’m upset with the latest shenanigans in Washington, D.C. and Santa Fe, those friends buoy my spirits with convivial discourse over a great meal. Such was the case when I met Linda Johansen (my former boss and the doyenne of Information Technology at the University of New Mexico) for dinner at Mesa Provisions.  You might think when IT propeller heads get together we’d talk shop for hours on end, but that’s not the case when Linda and I break bread.  Linda may be even more passionate about gastronomy than this self-glossed gastronome.  As a certified Kansas City Barbecue Society (KCBS) judge, she recently had the privilege of judging at the American Royal World Series…