The James Beard Foundation announced the finalists for its 2026 Restaurant and Chef Awards on Tuesday, and a Vermont chef made the cut for the next round of this year’s prestigious awards.
Paul Trombly, chef-owner of Fancy’s in Burlington’s Old North End, is nominated in the regional Best Chef: Northeast category. He’s the only Vermont semifinalist to advance to this year’s finals. Winners will be announced at a ceremony in Chicago on June 15.
In 2024, Trombly opened Fancy’s in the cozy restaurant space he shares with lunchtime counterpart Poppy café and market. The former Honey Road chef and Mister Foods Fancy food truck owner puts vegetables at the center of most of his plates, spotlighting local produce with global techniques and flavors gleaned from his two-decade-plus culinary career.
Trombly, like his restaurant, is mostly vegetarian. He described Fancy’s menu as “what I like cooking the most” and “a reflection of what I like to eat.”
That might include carrot “mochi,” a duck breast special or Detroit-style pizza nights. Fancy’s does it all without pretension.
“Trombly’s tiny restaurant feels far homier than fancy, which is part of the inside joke,” Seven Days wrote in 2024. Trombly lived in an activist collective in his early twenties, and friends teased him for carefully plating and garnishing the free community meals he cooked, dubbing him “Mr. Fancy Chef Man.”
He’ll compete in the finals against chefs from Bantam, Conn.; Dover, N.H.; Portland, Maine; and Providence, R.I.
Tiara Adorno of the Crooked Ram in Manchester and Max Vogel of Ondis in Montpelier were semifinalists in the same Best Chef: Northeast category. Kate Wise, Leslie McCrorey Wells and the team from St. Albans’ Café Monette were all semifinalists for nationwide awards.
Last year, Vermont had finalists in three categories: White River Junction cocktail bar Wolf Tree for Outstanding Bar, May Day chef Avery Buck for Best Chef: Northeast category, and Allison Gibson and Cara Chigazola Tobin — co-owners of Burlington’s Honey Road and the Grey Jay — for Outstanding Restaurateur. Chef Nisachon “Rung” Morgan of Randolph’s Saap restaurant won Vermont’s first James Beard Award in 2022.
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