Oct. 15--The James Beard Foundation is accepting entries for its 2016 awards, commonly called the Oscars of the food world. For the second year in a row, the awards ceremony will be held in Chicago.
The categories for restaurant, chef and restaurant design awards will not change for 2016. Among them: awards for the nation's most outstanding chef, outstanding restaurant, outstanding wine program, outstanding bar program, outstanding pastry chef and outstanding baker (a new category last year), along with region-specific awards including Best Chef: Midwest.
Updated award categories include Food Reporting (formerly Food Politics, Policy and the Environment), open to writers who have published a public-service piece on political, business, or policy-related issues relevant to food or drink in 2015; and the Broadcast category for food segments on nonfood television programs, updated to include stand-alone pieces as well.
The Group Food Blog and Individual Food Blog awards have been merged into a single Food Blog award.
In the Books category, authors may no longer submit just for photography; instead, photography submissions must be entered in an additional qualifying category.
Submit entries here by Dec. 11 for book awards, Dec. 31 for restaurant and chef awards, Jan. 6 for journalism, broadcast and new media awards, and Jan. 29 for restaurant design awards. Restaurant and chef semifinalists will be announced Feb. 17; all other finalists will be announced March 15.
The award ceremony and gala for restaurants and chefs will be held at Chicago's Lyric Opera on May 2. The ceremony for journalism and book awards will be held in New York on April 26.
mconrad@tribpub.com
Twitter @marissa_conrad
