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Valerie Chang
The results are in…and chefs from two small but culinarily mighty Mexican restaurants that debuted in 2021 are new owners of prestigious James Beard Awards, as is the chef of a Peruvian spot that opened just last year.
Rene Andrade of Bacanora in Phoenix was named Best Chef: Southwest; Ana Liz Pulido of Ana Liz Taqueria in Mission, Texas, was named Best Chef: Texas; and Valerie Chang of Maty’s in Miami, Florida was named Best Chef: South during the awards ceremony on Monday, June 10 at The Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Bacanora, located in the city’s Grand Avenue neighborhood, features Sonoran comfort cuisine cooked over an open flame on a wood-fired grill. The food is so good that monthly reservation drops are the norm — and those reservations are hard (and sometimes impossible) to come by.
Rene Andrade
Andrade’s inspiration? His grandmother, whom he credited with instilling his love of cooking. "I just want to be like her. She's the representation of magic to me," he said when accepting the award. Andrade also owns Huarachis, a casual walk-in restaurant that opened last December. The downtown Phoenix spot is a more casual walk-in version of the reservation-based Bacanora.
Ana Liz Taqueira, dubbed “a pilgrimage-worthy spot” by Texas Monthly in 2022, is known for a menu that features tacos served in tortillas made with Pulido’s made-from-scratch masa. Pulido — a Culinary Institute of America, San Antonio graduate — was nominated for Best Chef in Texas last year; this year, she emerged victorious.
Ana Liz Pulido
Peruvian hot spot Maty’s, which opened in 2023 in Midtown, has made its mark with a menu of dishes inspired by Chang’s Peruvian upbringing. This relative newcomer to the area’s culinary scene isn’t new to accolades: Condé Nast Traveler named it one of the best new restaurants in the world in 2024 for, among other dishes, Chang’s “humble seasonal pickles and chicken milanesa to oysters kissed with leche de tigre and charred corn in a shower of pecorino." In a touching moment in her acceptance speech, Chang noted that the award comes just five days after the passing of her grandmother, for whom Maty’s is named.
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