Huge congrats to Charleen Badman, the chef and co-owner of FnB in Scottsdale who was named Best Chef Southwest at the annual James Beard Awards in Chicago on Monday night.
The victory at the Beard Awards, the culinary world’s version of the Oscars, ends a 12-year drought by Arizona chefs.
The last Arizona chef to win Best Chef Southwest was Nobuo Fukuda in 2007, capping a remarkable run during which Arizona chefs won nine times in 15 years.
Since then, however, only one Arizona chef had even made the finals – Kevin Binkley doing so four times from 2012-2015 – until Badman did it this year.
Badman had been one of 20 semifinalists for the honor for five straight years. This year’s four other finalists, announced last month, all were from Texas.
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