Transforming the James Beard Awards: A Response to Social Change

When the #MeToo movement gained momentum in exposing abuses at the highest levels of power, the restaurant industry was exposed as a chief offender. In 2020, the James Beard Awards, the food world’s main kingmaker, announced that there would be no winners in either 2020 or 2021 after allegations against several top chefs.

Brett Anderson, a contributing writer on The Times’s Food desk and a former member of the awards committee, discusses the attempts to hold the industry to account.

Guest: Brett Anderson, a food correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading:

• Early indications suggest that the new vetting process for the James Beard Awards is vulnerable to failure in several ways.
• Behind the cancellation of the 2020 and 2021 James Beard Awards were worries about chefs’ behavior and a lack of Black winners.

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