Michigan only had one horse in the race at the James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards this year.
Of the six Michigan businesses or groups of chefs named as semifinalists for the prestigious awards in January, only Bar Chenin in the Siren Hotel moved on to a final nomination. The small and very cool wine bar was nominated for a James Beard Award in the national category of Best New Bar.
Nick Arone’s very tiny wine-centric bar that serves square pizza, ice cream and sometimes burgers was up against four other new bars from across the country. They include Bar, Please! in Boise, Idaho, Clemente Bar in New York City, Later Bye in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Loma in Providence, Rhode Island.
It was Loma, a classic cocktail bar that pays homage to Latin American culture, that took home the James Beard medal at Monday night’s ceremony in Chicago.
It’s been an exciting year for Chenin. Along with the Beard nomination, it made The Detroit News’ list of best new Detroit bars of 2025 in December and was named by the Detroit Free Press as one of the year’s top new restaurants in February.
This is the second year that Michigan’s hospitality industry came home from the James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards empty handed.
In 2025, when the list of semifinalists was winnowed down to final nominees, only one Michigan-based finalist remained: chefs Jennifer Blakeslee and Eric Patterson of the 26-seat Cooks’ House in Traverse City in the category of Best Chef: Great Lakes.
In 2024, Clawson sushi chef Hajime Sato of Sozai restaurant won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Great Lakes.
His win was the first time a sushi restaurant had taken this category and also marked the first time a Clawson business had won any James Beard Award. It was also the first time a Michigan chef triumphed in this category since 2011. Sato closed Sozai suddenly in April 2025 and moved back to the Pacific Northwest.
In 2022, chef Warda Bouguettaya of Midtown’s Warda Pâtisserie took home the medal for Outstanding Pastry Chef. Her win marked the state’s first and only James Beard win in a national category.
Other James Beard Award winners from Michigan include chef Alex Young (Best Chef: Great Lakes 2011), chef Takashi Yagihashi (Best Chef: Midwest 2003) and chef Jimmy Schmidt (Best Chef: Midwest 1993).
The James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards are selected from a pool of submission at the end of the year. A list of semifinalists are revealed in January, with the final pool of nominees announced a few weeks later. The awards are determined by a panel of anonymous judges made up of chefs, journalist and other professionals related to the food industry.
mbaetens@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Here’s how Detroit’s Bar Chenin did at the James Beard Awards
Reporting by Melody Baetens, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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By Melody Baetens, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
