Bryce Gilmore at the original Barley Swine on South Lamar Boulevard. (Laura Skelding AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
Bryce Gilmore is having another exciting year. He moved his beloved farm-to-table restaurant, Barley Swine, to Burnet Road earlier this year, and today he received his second consecutive finalist nod from the James Beard Foundation for Best Chef Southwest. He is joined in that category by Steve McHugh of Cured in San Antonio and Houston chefs Hugo Ortega (Caracol) and Justin Yu (Oxheart).
Chefs Rene Ortiz and Laura Sawicki received finalist nods for Best New Restaurant in America for their neighborhood diner Launderette, which takes a fun approach to flavors from the Mediterranean and Middle Eats. Theirs is the only Austin restaurant in that category this year.
Rounding out the Austin contingent is Grae Nonas, co-executive chef of Olamaie, who is one of five finalists in the Rising Star category, an award given to “a chef age 30 or younger who displays an impressive talent and who is likely to make a significant impact on the industry in years to come.”
The chef awards will be handed out at a ceremony in Chicago on May 2.
- Related: Barley Swine in the Austin360 Dining Guide: #2 in 2015 | #4 in 2014 | #1 in 2013
- Related: Olamaie #1 in Austin360 Dining Guide
- Related: Launderette #16 on Austin360 Dining Guide | Launderette on my Top 10 burgers in Austin list
Austin also has representation in the Book Awards section, as Austinite Toni Tipton-Martin’s “The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks” received a finalist nod in the Reference and Scholarship portion of the competition. Read Addie Broyles’ 2015 interview with the author here.
