The James Beard Foundation announced the finalists for its 2025 Restaurant and Chef Awards on Wednesday, April 2, with a Vermont bar, chef and duo of restaurateurs making the cut for the next round of this year’s prestigious awards. Winners will be announced at a ceremony in Chicago on June 16.
White River Junction cocktail bar Wolf Tree is one of five finalists in the nationwide Outstanding Bar category, where it’s up against bars from Chicago, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City and Portland, Ore. Leyenda — a Brooklyn bar co-owned by Tunbridge native Ivy Mix — was also a semifinalist in the category but closed at the end of March.
After the semifinalist announcement in January, Wolf Tree owner Max Overstrom-Coleman told Seven Days, “When you open a bar in Vermont, you don’t do it for notoriety. You do it to be part of a community. But to feel a little love from a larger audience is pretty wonderful.”
May Day chef Avery Buck also moved on to the final round of the awards in the regional Best Chef: Northeast category.
Originally from southern Vermont, Buck took over the kitchen at the restaurant in Burlington’s Old North End in July 2023; he’d worked at Hen of the Wood, Doc Ponds, Burlington Beer and the Grey Jay before that.
Allison Gibson and Cara Chigazola Tobin — co-owners of Burlington’s Honey Road and the Grey Jay — are finalists in the nationwide Outstanding Restaurateur category, which recognizes owners who use their restaurants “as a vehicle for building community, [demonstrate] creativity in entrepreneurship, and integrity in restaurant operations.”
Chef Nisachon “Rung” Morgan of Saap restaurant in Randolph won Vermont’s first James Beard Award in the Best Chef: Northeast category in 2022.
In 2024, Vermont was represented by two finalists: Chigazola Tobin in the Best Chef: Northeast category and the cocktail bar at Barr Hill’s Montpelier distillery in the nationwide Outstanding Bar category.
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This article appears in Mar 26 – Apr 1, 2025.
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