A month ago, we were excited that a strong lot of Triangle-based chefs and restaurants had made it into the semifinal round of the 2016 James Beard Award nominations. But as of this afternoon, just one of the dozen or so North Carolina semifinalists made the cut to be an actual nominee.
Ashley Christensen‘s Death & Taxes, which opened in downtown Raleigh last June, is still in the running for Best New Restaurant. It’s among five other nominees in New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, Austin, and Atlanta.
Outside of the main restaurant-related awards, Durham writer and occasional INDY contributor Emily Wallace has been nominated for a James Beard Foundation Journalism award in the humor category, for her 2015 essay “Ham to Ham Combat: A Tale of Two Smithfields,” which ran in the Southern Foodways Alliance‘s quarterly Gravy.
The awards ceremony will be held in Chicago May 2. You can peruse the full list of nominees here.
