James Beard Recognitions - Nashville 2025

The James Beard Foundation doesn't recognize potential. It recognizes restaurants that have already done the work. Peninsula is making the most ambitious case for what a Nashville restaurant can be right now — Chef Jake Howell's cooking is the kind of thing the recognition is overdue for. Tailor has spent years making the argument for Indian-inflected fine dining in America with the kind of precision and conviction that doesn't need a foundation's blessing to matter — but the blessing fits. The Catbird Seat has been one of the best tasting menu experiences in the country for over a decade. Not a list of restaurants on their way up. A list of restaurants that already arrived.