2014 James Beard Semifinalists Announced

Today, the James Beard Foundation announced its Restaurant and Chef Award semifinalists. Five Honolulu chefs and restaurants made the cut—the most nominations in years—a testament to our city's recent wave of new and excellent restaurants.

The semifinalists:
MW for Best New Restaurant
Michelle Karr-Ueoka of MW for Outstanding Pastry Chef
Chris Kajioka of Vintage Cave for Rising Star Chef of the Year
Andrew Le of The Pig and the Lady for Rising Star Chef of the Year
Ed Kenney of Town for Best Chef: West (a regional category that includes Hawaii and California)

For those counting, that puts Honolulu in a four-way tie for 14th place relative to the number of James Beard semifinalists. The other cities with five nominations are Dallas, Denver and St. Louis. New York, as usual, tops the list with 48 semifinalists, followed by San Francisco (24) and Chicago (21).

The list will be narrowed to the finalists on March 19 and the winners announced at a ceremony in New York on May 5.