The James Beard Foundation kicked off its annual awards season on Wednesday, January 21, with the announcement of semifinalists for its 2026 Restaurant and Chef Awards. Several Vermont chefs and industry pros were recognized in the first round of the prestigious awards.
Café Monette in St. Albans was one of 30 restaurants around the country named in the Best New Restaurant category. Leslie McCrorey Wells — co-owner of Burlington’s Pizzeria Verità, Trattoria Delia and Sotto Enoteca — is a semifinalist for Outstanding Restaurateur.
Kate Wise, bar manager at Burlington’s Juniper Bar & Restaurant, was recognized in the nationwide Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service category. Wise has been behind Juniper’s copper bar since 2018. In 2021, she spearheaded a statewide #drinkitforward fundraising campaign; that effort continues at the bar inside Hotel Vermont, where $1 from each sale of a selected beverage on the Juniper menu is donated to a new nonprofit every two months.
Three Vermont chefs made the list for the regional Best Chef: Northeast category: Tiara Adorno of the Crooked Ram in Manchester, Paul Trombly of Fancy’s in Burlington and Max Vogel of Ondis in Montpelier.
Adorno has been running the kitchen at the Crooked Ram since July 2021. When she heard the news, “We all just screamed and hugged each other,” she said.
She was with her tight-knit, longtime team at their newest addition, Bondville Bodega. The grab-and-go spot at the foot of Stratton Mountain will open at the end of the week, she said.
The Crooked Ram has evolved significantly since owner Peter Campbell started it as a bottle shop in 2017. These days, Adorno serves dishes such as wood-fired mushroom and salami pizza outdoors at the Yard all summer, and high-end bites — including hamachi crudo and housemade lumache pasta in a deliciously smoky tomato-and-Parmesan broth — from a contemporary open kitchen inside the restaurant during the colder months.
A Johnson & Wales University graduate who spent three years at then-Michelin-starred Spruce in San Francisco, Adorno “builds her dishes on a backbone of European techniques and Vermont ingredients, layering in bold flavors, colors and textures from the rest of the world,” Seven Days wrote in December.
Wednesday morning, she got a text message from a local friend. “She said, ‘Congratulations. It’s about freaking time.’ And I thought it was in reference to us opening the location here,” Adorno said with a laugh.
“Southern Vermont has a lot to offer,” she continued. “We’re just super stoked to see our little corner of Vermont get a bit of recognition.”
In 2024, Trombly opened Fancy’s in the cozy Old North End 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.
Vogel, a longtime area chef and New England Culinary Institute grad, has been the chef at Ondis since the tiny Montpelier spot opened in December 2023. “The business runs with him, because of him. He’s super talented,” co-owner Christopher Leighton told Seven Days in 2024.
St. Albans is by far the smallest city represented in the highly competitive Best New Restaurant category.
Café Monette will compete with other fledgling restaurants in cities such as New York City, Chicago, New Orleans and Houston for the award, which honors places that “[seem] likely to make a significant impact in years to come, and [demonstrate] consistent excellence in food, atmosphere, hospitality, and operations.”
“We have 3.5 percent of the population of the second-smallest town on the list,” partner Henry Long said after quickly doing the math.
Adam Monette, Tyler Comeau and Long opened their chic restaurant on North Main Street in August. They serve a French-inflected, locally sourced menu with dishes such as potato gnocchi “in the style of New England corn chowder”; creative desserts like a spin on French toast with maple pot de créme and custardy canelé; and an outstanding, reasonably priced natural wine list.
“It’s overwhelming,” Monette said as the team took a break from prep work on Wednesday afternoon. “This is one idea, lots of hands, and it’s incredible just to be in the conversation. Now I know what Ric Flair felt like in the 1992 Royal Rumble,” he said, referencing a classic underdog story in wrestling.
Pop-culture references aside, the Café Monette team — which still has the same core staff as when it started — remains focused. “What matters is the people that come in every day and eat with us,” Comeau said. “One day at a time: good service and good food and wine.”
“We’re not going to start changing things because of a few more eyeballs,” Long added.
Wells was “incredibly, incredibly humbled” by the Outstanding Restaurateur recognition, she said.
The nationwide category recognizes owners and operators who use “their establishments as a vehicle for building community [and demonstrate] creativity in entrepreneurship, and integrity in restaurant operations,” the description explains.
Wells was quick to acknowledge the staff at her Burlington restaurants, all of which are on St. Paul Street.
“I’ve been working at this for a really long time — so many of us have — and it’s always been about my team,” Wells told Seven Days on Wednesday. “The last two years, they’ve really stepped up to give me the opportunity to do other things.”
Those other things include running Lovestock Farm in Grand Isle and launching Alimentari, an Italian café and market at 196 St. Paul Street. Alimentari will tentatively open by the end of February, she said.
“It’s such a difficult time for restaurants,” Wells said. “Every restaurant should be applauded for keeping their staff employed and their doors open.”
Last year, Vermont had finalists in three categories of the awards: 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.
This year’s semifinalists will be whittled into a short list of nominees on Tuesday, March 31. Award winners will be announced at a ceremony in Chicago on June 15.
This post has been updated.
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