James Beard accolades of Top Chef contestants

Have we seen an increase over time?

We are in the process of updating the data, even after publication! Let me know if there are edits that should be made.

The James Beard Awards are some, if not the most, prestigious food awards in the US (Michelin recognition being another). As the Top Chef seasons have gone on, I thought I noticed a trend: it seemed like there have been many more Top Chef contestants with James Beard accolades prior to the season.

And what better time to dig in to find out? The nominees for 2025 have been released!

There have been 78 chefs in the main Top Chef series who have been nominated, a semi-finalist or won a James Beard Award (25.7% of all chefs). Added up across the 78 chefs, there have been 137 semi-finalists, 48 nominations, and 13 wins -- 198 times.

Only 11 Top Chef contestants have won a James Beard Award - and none of them won prior to being on Top Chef. There have only been two chefs who won more than one James Beard Award: Gregory Gourdet and Fatima Ali. Of these 11 chefs, four of them are from Season 9 (Texas) and two are from Season 11 (New Orleans). Those 11 chefs are shown in the table below (to change how the table is sorted, click the table itself).