For the ninth consecutive year, Arizona will not have a James Beard Award-winning chef or restaurant. Even worse, this year we don’t even have a finalist.
The culinary world’s equivalent of the Oscars announced its three to five finalists in various cateories, including Best Chef Southwest, the region that includes Arizona.
The two Arizona chefs who had made last month’s ‘‘long list’’ of 20 semifinalists – Kevin Binkley from Binkley’s in Cave Creek and Charleen Badman from FnB in Scottsdale – failed to make the final five.
Two Arizona semifinalists in other categories — Sam Fox of Fox Restaurant Concepts (Outstanding Restaurateur) and Pizzeria Bianco (Outstanding Restaurant) — also failed to advance.
Binkley had made the finals for four years in a row. Badman, Fox, and Pizzeria Bianco also made last year’s semifinalists list and failed to advance.
See the full list of 2016 finalists here.
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