Smyrna has been around for less than four years, but that’s long enough for chef and co-founder Tarik Sengul to get the attention of the prestigious James Beard Foundation: Sengul has been named a semifinalist for the Best Chef in the Mid-Atlantic category, which encompasses restaurants in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Washington, D.C.
He joins previous local James Beard semifinalists Peter Chang (Peter Chang China Grill), Melissa Close-Hart (Junction), Jose de Brito (The Alley Light, Café Frank), Angelo Vangelopoulos (Ivy Inn), and Ian Redshaw (Lampo, Prime 109).
A native of Turkey, Sengul began his American cooking career in New York and then joined forces with his friend, Orhun Bartu Dikmen, to launch Smyrna in the summer of 2022. The Aegean/Mediterranean restaurant’s open kitchen set-up allows diners to watch the chefs prepare dishes from the tantalizing meze trio to the coveted Manti dumplings dish composed of Sharondale mushrooms, dehydrated tomato, garlic yogurt, and pepper butter sauce. Sengul will find out on April 1 if he moves to the list of five finalists. The 2026 James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards will be presented in Chicago on June 15…