Asheville’s Chef Katie Button made the short list of nominees March 14 in the 2018 James Beard Foundation Awards announcement. The chef and co-owner of Cúrate and Nightbell restaurants, Button has been nominated for the Best Chef Southeast category.
“It’s an honor to reach this level of recognition,” Button said. “My teams at Nightbell and Cúrate work so hard and this is really a reflection of that. Community support, like what we have from local farmers, makers, and guests, is also vital to our success.”
The James Beard Foundation is a national not-for-profit organization based in New York City that administers a number of diverse programs. Those include educational initiatives, food industry awards, scholarships for culinary students, publications, chef advocacy training, and thought-leader convening. Button has been involved with the Foundation in a number of ways, including cooking at the James Beard House in NYC in 2012, attending a Chefs Boot Camp for Policy and Change in 2016, and speaking at a Beard on Books event about her debut cookbook, Cúrate: Authentic Spanish Food from an American Kitchen, in 2017.
The Foundation has recognized Button in the past as a semifinalist for Best Chefs in America 2015; semifinalist for Rising Star Chef of the Year 2012; semifinalist for Rising Star Chef of the Year 2013; and nominee for Rising Star Chef of the Year 2014.
Mashama Bailey of The Grey in Savannah, Georgia; Cassidee Dabney of The Barn at Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee; Rodney Scott of Rodney Scott’s BBQ in Charleston, South Carolina; and Andrew Ticer and Michael Hudman of Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen in Memphis, Tennessee, are also nominated for Best Chef Southeast.
The Beard Foundation will hold their gala awards ceremony May 7 in Chicago, at which Chef Katie Button and her team will also be cooking.
