No Maryland eateries named James Beard Award finalists

The James Beard Foundation announced finalists Tuesday for its 2026 awards, widely considered the highest honor in the culinary industry.

But no Maryland eateries made the cut.

Four Baltimore area businesses were nominated as semifinalists. It was the first time each of them had received nods from the James Beard Foundation. The Pink Flamingo tavern in Remington was nominated for best new bar, while owner Doug Atwell of bar Southpaw in Fells Point was nominated for the outstanding professional in cocktail service category.

The culinary foundation also nominated Café Dear Leon in Canton as a semifinalist for outstanding bakery and chef Matthew Oetting of Marta Fine Food and Spirits in Butcher’s Hill for best chef in the mid-Atlantic region.

Two other Maryland chefs fell short of the finals in the best chef in the mid-Atlantic region category. Matthew Adler, who serves as chef and partner at Caruso’s Grocery in North Bethesda, was nominated for his work at his Italian restaurant Cucina Morini in Washington. In Silver Spring, chef Darmyelesh Alemu was nominated for her work at Beteseb, an Ethiopian restaurant.

In a conversation with The Banner, Marta’s Oetting said he was shocked when he got his semifinalist nod in January. Pink Flamingo owners Brendan Dorr and Eric Fooy called the honor “unexpected,” and Southpaw owner Atwell told The Banner he worried the foundation had made a typo in listing his name.

On Monday, Atwell took to social media to share his thoughts on the “surprising and gratifying praise.” He acknowledged the challenge of keeping his bar open after building out their space during a pandemic and grappling with “supply chain nonsense” over the last three years.

“I’ve already braced myself internally for this metaphorical fairy tale stagecoach to turn back into a pumpkin. That said, I can’t help but feel anything other than immense gratitude to be included in a list with so many other professionals I deeply admire and respect,” he wrote on Instagram, before the finalists were named.

Several of Baltimore’s big names in hospitality previously received semifinalist nominations, including Steve Chu, owner of Ekiben, and Jasmine Norton, who opened her Urban Oyster eatery in Hampden in 2024.

Only two Baltimore restaurants have won James Beard Awards in recent years. Woodberry Kitchen’s Spike Gjerde won the prize for best chef in the mid-Atlantic region in 2015. Last year, chef Cindy Wolf’s Charleston in Harbor East won for its wine program.

Wolf has since noticed an uptick in traffic to the restaurant. Her team’s win came after several finalist nominations for various categories, including best chef in the mid-Atlantic.

Gjerde’s Woodberry Kitchen has since rebranded to Woodberry Tavern, now with a bustling catering and events arm. The restaurateur also spent the last year opening two new restaurants. La Jetée opened in the former Cindy Lou’s Fish House space in Harbor Point, with an 80-seat dining room and French fare. Last weekend he unveiled Bar Dalí, a Mount Vernon tapas-style bar in the former Mount Vernon Stable & Saloon space, which had been a neighborhood fixture until it closed in 2022.

More Baltimore restaurateurs have been recognized by the James Beard Foundation in recent years. But that number still pales in comparison to the number of eateries in neighboring cities, such as Washington and Philadelphia, that were named to the competition’s final round during the last 10 years.

This year in the best chef in the mid-Atlantic region category, four Pennsylvania chefs advanced to the finals, three of them based in Philadelphia. Another chef from Washington, Suresh Sundas, received a finalist nomination for his South Asian street food restaurant Tapori in D.C.

The awards will be given out during an in-person ceremony in Chicago on June 15.

Banner reporter Hannah Yasharoff contributed to this story.

Cindy Wolf’s and Brendan Dorr’s names were misspelled in an earlier version of this story.