If you live in the DC/NoVA area, you have heard of Jose Andres and Mike Isabella, and probably even Toki Underground’s Erik Bruner-Yang, but have you heard of Joe Goetze or Michael Costa? These are just five of the 78 chefs in DC that were selected by their peers (aka. other chefs) as being some of the best chefs in America. On top of that, 68 chefs from Northern Virginia were selected too!
Many foodies or even just regular restaurant visitors have heard of awards such as the James Beard or Top Chef, but BestChefsAmerica decided to take a different approach and actually ask chefs which chefs they thought were the best in their region and in the country. The result is a 386-page coffee table book, and soon to be a mobile website, that highlights nearly 4,700 chefs that are highly respected by others in their industry.
This peer review concept started when BestChefsAmerica’s Bill Blalock and Gabe Joseph were sitting around talking over cocktails with some of their friends in Charleston. Blalock had just finished an exhausting search of trying to find a chef for his newest restaurant, Stars, and that led to a discussion of who this group thought were the best chefs in the area. Also knowing that, especially when it comes to chefs, that no one can quite judge a chef like another chef, the idea to find out who would be recommended by their peers was created and the BestChefsAmerica project hit the ground running. Ten months, 70,000 phone calls, and 5,114 telephone interviews later, the data from the chefs around the country was analyzed and the accolades were unveiled.
In the DMV, we are lucky to have 159 chefs that were included. Out of those 159 chefs from the area, most ‘regular’ food goers might know a handful of the chefs named, but the great thing about this process is that it honors a lot of chefs who work outside of the spotlight to produce masterpieces, but are rarely honored. Now foodies, and even visitors to the area, can reference BestChefsAmerica and find great hidden-food gems across the area.
Some names I was excited to see honored:
Claire Lamborne, Executive Chef & Owner of Claire’s at the Depot in Warrenton
Will Artley, Executive Chef at Pizzeria Orso in Falls Church
Joe Goetze, Corporate Chef for Founding Farmers in Downtown DC
Dimitri Moshovitis, Chef & Founder of Cava Mezze (multiple locations)
Eating Out In DC/NoVA 