James Beard Awards will now require chefs to show a social-justice commitment

For the first time, winning James Beard Awards, long known as the top honors in the restaurant and food media world, won’t just depend on someone’s skill with a whisk or with words.

The organization that doles out the prestigious annual awards has retooled its criteria and now will also base decisions on whether candidates have shown a “demonstrated commitment to racial and gender equity, community, environmental sustainability, and a culture where all can thrive.” The James Beard Foundation, which administers the awards, also announced a slate of other changes aimed at diversifying its judging committees — a move it ultimately hopes will lead to a more diverse group of winners — and screening for potentially problematic chefs taking the industry’s top honors.

The move comes as the foundation is positioning itself not just as the promoter of American cuisine, as it has for years, but of social-justice causes within the restaurant industry.

“Excellence in your craft, whether you’re a chef or a restaurateur or a writer, that’s still key,” Dawn Padmore, the vice president for awards, said in an interview. “It’s an awards program. But what else are we doing — all of us — to create a better industry and community? It’s aspirational for where we want to go.”

The changes were prompted in part by the controversy that surrounded its last awards cycle. In 2020, just before the traditional announcement of winners, the foundation announced it was scrapping the bulk of that year’s awards program and that it planned to return in 2022. Ostensibly, the reason was the pandemic that had shuttered many restaurants and inflicted pain across the industry, making some in the industry worry about the optics of self-celebration.