Philadelphians win big at 2023 James Beard restaurant awards

Philadelphians won three major categories of the James Beard Awards on Monday night as Friday Saturday Sunday was named the nation’s outstanding restaurant and Ellen Yin its outstanding restaurateur, while Chutatip “Nok” Suntaranon of Kalaya was named the best chef in the Mid-Atlantic region.

It was the city’s strongest showing in the prestigious food awards since 2017, when restaurateur Stephen Starr and chefs Michael Solomonov and Greg Vernick won their categories. Aside from civic pride, the awards drew attention from national food and travel publications.

This year’s Beard winners were a diverse assortment — ethnically and geographically. Idaho (Kris Komori of KIN) and Oklahoma (Andrew Black of Grey Sweater) saw their states win Beards for the first time. Natalia Vallejo of Cocina al Fondo in San Juan was Puerto Rico’s first winner. Sherry Pocknett of Sly Fox Den Too in Charlestown, R.I., celebrates local Native American food traditions. Vince Nguyen of Berlu in Portland, Ore., stretches the boundaries of Vietnamese cooking.

Friday Saturday Sunday’s Chad Williams, turning to address the staff members assembled behind him on stage at the Lyric Opera House in Chicago, said, “I am eternally grateful for everything you bring to the restaurant every day. You bring our vision to life and you have changed our world, and it means everything to the guests that come in and make this place their second home.”

Williams also thanked his wife, Hanna Williams, with whom he opened the fine-dining restaurant in late 2016 at 21st and Rittenhouse Streets, on the site of a long-ago Rittenhouse Square restaurant of the same name. Both of them grew in Philadelphia — he in West Philadelphia and she in Mount Airy.

Yin, a five-time finalist for the restaurateur award, opened Fork at 306 Market St. in 1997, helping to catapult Old City into a restaurant destination.

Yin has been a force in Philadelphia dining, cofounding the Sisterly Love Coalition to champion women in hospitality and leading relief efforts during the pandemic, as well as raising money to fight anti-Asian discrimination through the Wonton Project, inspired by her mother.

With partners, including chef Eli Kulp, she went on to open a.kitchen on Rittenhouse Square and High Street, now at Ninth and Chestnut Streets.

“I fell in love with this industry when I was a teenager, but it took me 25 years to realize that a restaurant was the first place that I felt a true sense of belonging,” Yin said on the awards stage.

She started in the business in her hometown of Rumson, N.J., but in Philadelphia, she said, she found “a world-class restaurant [industry] that represents our diversity, ethnicity, history, and resiliency.” Referring to her staff and her fellow nominees, “I could not be more proud to accompany such a talented group of Philadelphians to represent our city.”

Suntaranon, a finalist last year for the Mid-Atlantic award, is known to all as Nok (say it “nook”).

A native of Thailand, she started her career as a flight attendant and fell into owning an Italian restaurant in Bangkok. She moved to Philadelphia in 2010 with her husband, Ziv Katalan, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Seeking a creative outlet, she took classes in New York at the French Culinary Institute and got a degree in French cuisine, interning with Jean-Georges Vongerichten.

With a now-former partner, in 2019 she opened Kalaya as a BYOB on Ninth Street in the Italian Market, naming it after her mother (say it “kah-lay-YAH”) and celebrating the food of southern Thailand.

Kalaya was named the country’s top newcomer that year by Esquire and Food & Wine.

Kalaya moved earlier this year to sumptuous quarters four times its original size at 4 W. Palmer St. on the Fishtown-Kensington line in a new partnership with chef Nick Kennedy, Al Lucas, and Greg Root of the Defined Hospitality group, which also owns Suraya and Condesa.

» READ MORE: Follow along with Craig LaBan on a trip to Thailand with Nok

From the beginning, “I always wanted [the Beard award],” she said backstage. “I’m very competitive and not in a very quiet way. ... Until today, I never [gave] up. I keep pushing and I just never see myself work less than the first day.”

“Yesterday, my husband asked me to write, a practice acceptance speech or whatever,” Nok told the audience. “Sometimes, I don’t speak English ... so when I started like a few words, I started crying because this is something I want so bad.”

» READ MORE: Philly bartender Toby Maloney wins a 2023 James Beard book award

She noted that she named the restaurant after her mother, who “worked really hard and devoted every minute of her life to make my life and my brother’s life better.”

She thanked her husband, her partners, developer Roland Kassis, and the James Beard Foundation for “changing this industry for more equitable treatment” of chefs. She also thanked “the people of Philadelphia who love my food.”

Three other chefs and restaurateurs from Philadelphia made it to Chicago for the ceremony. Amanda Shulman of Her Place Supper Club was a finalist for Emerging Chef. Jesse Ito of Royal Izakaya and Dionicio Jiménez of Cantina La Martina were both in the running for the Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic category.

The awards show will be rerun on the Cooking Channel from 6 to 8 p.m. June 16.

(Editor’s note: Some current Inquirer staff members have served on or are part of the James Beard Awards voting body.)