James Beard’s story is pretty neat: After failing at his first dream — becoming an actor — Beard switched to cooking and opened his own catering company. The year was 1939, a cookbook followed in 1940, and when his television show debuted in 1946, it was the nation’s first. The first James Beard Awards wouldn’t be given until 1991, and Beard wouldn’t live to see it — he died in 1985. From then on, it became no secret that the James Beard Foundation’s annual awards are a huge deal, and getting even a nomination or semifinalist status is a sign that chefs, restaurants, and organizations are doing something that’s top-tier.
Even after decades of ceremonies, nominations, and winners, there’s a certain vibe associated with a James Beard award. You’re probably picturing the sort of fancy restaurants where you’ll be expected to dress to the nines when you show up to the reservations you’ve made weeks — if not months in advance. It’s always a fancy, over-the-top restaurant… isn’t it?
Not always, and it turns out that there are some award-winning restaurants that you can find in very unexpected locations. We’re talking about small towns with a population of a few hundred people, and about residential side streets and buildings that can hold a few dozen people at most. We’re talking about strip malls, alongside winding country roads, and out in the middle-of-nowhere, U.S.A. Want to sample James Beard-winning cuisine without the headaches of a big city and oppressive dress code? Check out these fun, unique, and rave-worth spots.
Mawn (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Philadelphia’s 9th St. is perfectly delightful-looking, lined with brick buildings, the occasional storefront, and it’s that uniquely suburbanite width that invites drivers into two lanes of traffic, then immediately makes both regret their life choices. Tucked away in a tiny, unassuming one of those storefronts — one that looks like it should be advertising flowers, perhaps, or maybe antiques — is the 28-seat Mawn, a Cambodian hotspot helmed by a James Beard award-winning chef…