Minneapolis chefs, restaurant named finalists for James Beard Awards

Three chefs at the helm of Minneapolis restaurants and one Minneapolis restaurant have made the cut as finalists for the James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards.

Owamni is nominated for Best Restaurant. The chef of the Indigenous restaurant, Sean Sherman, is also one of the finalists for Best Chef: Midwest alongside two other Minnesota chefs: Jorge Guzmán from Petite León in Minneapolis and Yia Vang at Union Hmong Kitchen in Minneapolis.

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The James Beard Awards celebrate “exceptional talent and achievement in the culinary arts.”

The 2022 Awards ceremony will be held in-person in Chicago on Monday, June 13.

This is the first time since 2019 that the James Beard Foundation is presenting their normally annual awards ceremony.

Members of the organization announced a hiatus in 2020 and 2021 in order to “take time for self-reflection around who and where we are as an organization.” The foundation also underwent an audit of the awards policies and procedures during this time with the goal of removing systemic bias and increasing diversity.