No three-peat for Houston

Houston chef will not be city's latest James Beard Award winner

Houston came up a little short in this year’s James Beard Awards. Emmanuel Chavez, chef-owner of Spring Branch restaurant Tatemó, did not win Best Chef: Texas at the ceremony held on Monday, June 10.

Instead, the prize went to Ana Liz Pulido of Ana Liz Taqueria in Mission, Texas. Located in the Rio Grande Valley, Pulido has earned wide acclaim for her tacos and other dishes made with nixtamalized corn, her precisely made salsas, and carefully prepared meats and other fillings. In a 2022 review, Texas Monthly taco editor José Ralat hailed the restaurant as “worth the pilgrimage for taco lovers.”

As for Chavez, he still has the status of being a two-times Beard Award finalist, having been nominated in the Emerging Chef category in 2023. He’s earned considerable national attention for his restaurant, which serves a tasting menu built around dishes that use nixtamalized heirloom corn. In 2022, Esquire named it one of America’s Best New Restaurants, and last year Food & Wine selected Chavez as one of its Best New Chefs — the first time a Houston chef had earned that recognition since 2014. Tatemó won Restaurant of the Year in the 2024 CultureMap Tastemaker Awards.

Considered the Oscars of the food world, the awards recognize chefs and other culinary professionals in a wide range of categories ranging from Outstanding Chef to Best New Restaurant. Winners are selected by the foundation’s Awards Committee that is made up of media members, former winners, and others. See the full list of winners here.

If Chavez had won, it would have meant three years in a row that a Houstonian came home from Chicago with a medal. Last year, Benchawan Jabthong Painter won the award for her work at Street to Kitchen, and Southern-inspired cocktail bar Julep won Outstanding Bar Program in 2022. Other Houston chefs to win James Beard Awards include Robert Del Grande, Chris Shepherd, Justin Yu, and Hugo Ortega.

Overall, it was a tough night for Texas chefs and restaurants, as Pulido was the state’s only winner. None of the nominees in the national categories took home prizes. They were:

Best New Restaurant: Barbs-B-Q, Lockhart
Outstanding Bar: Las Ramblas (Brownsville)
Outstanding Hospitality: Gemma (Dallas)
Outstanding Restaurant: Mixtli (San Antonio)
Outstanding Restaurant: Convenience West (Marfa)
Outstanding Chef: David Uygur, Lucia (Dallas)

In addition to Chavez and Pulido, three other chefs were nominated for Best Chef: Texas:

Christopher Cullum, Cullum’s Attaboy (San Antonio)
Tracy Malechek-Ezekiel, Birdie’s (Austin)
Misti Norris, Petra & the Beast (Dallas)

Here's a closer look at the other nominated Texas chefs:

Emmanuel Chavez Tatemo James Beard Awards

Photo by Getty Images for James Beard Foundation

Chef Emmanuel Chavez of Tatemó in Houston.

At Cullum’s Attaboy in San Antonio, chef Cullum serves a French-influenced breakfast and lunch menu. The restaurant’s fast casual format belies the fine dining aspects of its food, which include a burger topped with demi-glace, classic escargot, and rolled omelets adorned with freshly shaved truffles. Cullum, who famously began his career by washing dishes at his father’s River Walk jazz club, earned a nomination for Chef of the Year in the 2024 CultureMap Tastemaker Awards.

At Birdie’s in Austin, chef Malechek-Ezekiel serves a constantly-changing menu based around seasonal proteins and produce. The restaurant blends a fast casual business model with a fine dining level of attention to detail and an extensive wine list. It has drawn lots of national attention, including being named a Best New Restaurant by both Esquire and Bon Appétit as well as 2023 Restaurant of the Year by Food & Wine and one of Austin’s 25 best restaurants by the New York Times. She won Chef of the Year in the 2024 CultureMap Tastemaker Awards.

At Petra & the Beast in Dallas, chef Norris serves a menu built around locally-sourced ingredients, including meats that are butchered in-house, an extensive charcuterie program, and lots of fermented items. It has earned widespread national recognition, including Best New Restaurant recognition from both Food & Wine and Texas Monthly and a Food & Wine Best New Chef award in 2019. Norris won Chef of the Year in the 2019 CultureMap Tastemaker Awards, and Petra & the Beast won Restaurant of the Year in the 2024 Tastemaker Awards.

The awards were presented at the Lyric Opera in Chicago. The foundation also presented media awards on Saturday, June 8.

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Full disclosure: CultureMap Houston editor Eric Sandler is a voter in the James Beard Awards. Brandon Watson, Teresa Gubbins, and Amber Heckler contributed to this story.

chefs awards

an offer he couldn't refuse

Exclusive: Killen's Barbecue will soon shutter in The Woodlands

Killen's barbecue meat platter with sides

Photo by Robert Jacob Lerma

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Fans of Killen’s Barbecue’s location in The Woodlands have a days to make one last visit. The restaurant will close this Sunday, December 7, chef-owner Ronnie Killen tells CultureMap.

Open since 2021, Killen says that he’s in final negotiations to sell the location at 8800 Six Pines Dr. to Whataburger for a new location of the iconic Texas fast food restaurant. Neither the original location of Killen’s Barbecue in Pearland nor its Cypress location are affected by the closure of The Woodlands and will remain open.

“Whataburger made me a deal I couldn’t pass up. It would take 10 years to do that kind of revenue,” Killen writes in a text, adding that the company recently made a significant payment to keep the deal’s window open through the end of the year.

He added that the costs to operate the restaurant have gone up significantly. As one example, a cord of wood cost $175 when he opened the first Killen’s Barbecue in 2013. It costs $475 now, he writes.

If the deal falls through, Killen states that he could look for a new buyer or convert the restaurant into a second location of Killen’s Burger, the retro-styled burger joint he operates in Pearland.

The restaurant’s closure had been expected since February, when Killen sold The Woodlands’ location of Killen's Steakhouse. At the time, Killen said he also planned to find a buyer for his barbecue joint in the bustling suburb. He cited the driving distance from Pearland to The Woodlands as one reason he chose to divest both locations. He still operates Killen's Steakhouse in Pearland, comfort food restaurant Killen's near the Heights, Killen's Burger, and three other locations of Killen's Barbecue.

As it approaches its 13th anniversary in the spring, Killen’s Barbecue remains a vital part of Houston’s barbecue scene. The restaurant recently earned an honorable mention from Texas Monthly and holds a Bib Gourmand designation in the Michelin Guide. In July, it opened a new location at Hobby Airport.

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