Raleigh, N.C., Earns Four James Beard Award Semifinalist Nominations for 2025
Thursday, January 23, 2025, 7am by visitRaleigh

The James Beard Foundation announced its list of chef and restaurant semifinalists for their annual James Beard Foundation Awards (often referred to as the "Oscars of the food world"), and the Raleigh area is well represented!
First given out in 1991, this year marks the 35th anniversary of the James Beard Awards. Finalists for the awards will be announced on April 2, and winners will be unveiled at the Restaurant and Chef Awards ceremony on June 16.
Christopher Prieto, Best Chef: Southeast
Champion pitmaster Christopher Prieto knows that good things come to those who wait. Good barbecue, after all, is all about patience.
Prieto racked up a myriad of awards and trophies—plus wrote a cookbook, taught 'cue classes, ran a catering company and made a number of television appearances—while traveling the competitive barbecue circuit in the 2010s.
He broke ground on his first restaurant in Knightdale—a 20-minute drive from downtown Raleigh—in 2018, ultimately opening the long-awaited Prime Barbecue in early 2020. It's now one of North Carolina's most trip-worthy foodie attractions. On any given day patrons stand in line trading stories of how far they had driven to get there (departures from South Carolina, Georgia and beyond are commonly overheard).
Having grown up in Texas and moved to the Raleigh area as a teenager, Prieto's barbecue offering blends Texas, North Carolina and Kansas City philosophies: source the best quality meats, keep it simple, cook it the right way and sell out every day. You'll find pulled pork, yes, but also brisket, house-made sausages, smoked turkey, beef ribs (Fridays) and even whole-hog lechon (Saturdays, an ode to the pitmaster's Puerto Rican heritage).
Prieto's best advice for a visit to Prime? Come early and come hungry (and don't miss the Texas cobbler for dessert!).
Bhavin Chhatwani, Emerging Chef
Chef Bhavin Chhatwani—new to Raleigh but no stranger to high-end eats—was recruited to help put Tamasha on the map. Safe to say: mission accomplished.
The upscale restaurant—opened in the Park District of North Hills in February 2024—has lived up to both the pre-opening hype and also the name (Tamasha can translate to "grand performance" in Hindi). The cuisine is modern Indian—a blend of northern and southern regions of the country—with a contemporary presentation that includes a dash of "gastronomic illusion."
Chhatwani has previous experience at San Francisco's Taj Campton Place (the world's only two-star Indian Michelin restaurant at the time) and at Adaa in Hyderabad, India (widely recognized as one of the country's top restaurants), just to name a couple stops on his award-winning journey around the globe prior to landing in the City of Oaks.
This also isn't the first time Chhatwani has been picked as a rising star—food magazine Plate labeled him one of 15 "Chefs to Watch" in the September 2024 issue.
Scott Crawford, Outstanding Restaurateur
Undoubtedly among the Tar Heel State's most acclaimed chefs, Scott Crawford's booming restaurant empire is now putting Raleigh in the national spotlight when it comes to food and hospitality conversations.
Crawford himself is a five-time James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Southeast, and his original Raleigh restaurant—Crawford and Son, opened in 2016—was a finalist just last year in the category of Outstanding Hospitality.
In 2019 Crawford opened the beloved Jolie, a French bistro with a rooftop dining space, and then began to the lay the groundwork for what ultimately became a very memorable 2024:
- Brodeto, a dreamy date-night outpost inspired by the Adriatic coast, opened to significant fanfare at Raleigh's booming live-work-play Raleigh Iron Works district in March;
- Sous Terre, a 1,000-suare-foot underground cocktail bar, opened beneath Jolie in May;
- Crawford's Genuine, an upscale bar and grill at RDU International Airport's Terminal 2, opened in September;
- and the chef's biggest restaurant yet, the 114-seat Crawford Brothers Steakhouse—featuring Prime Black Angus and Wagyu beefs plus more than 700 wines to choose from—opened in December at Cary's Fenton shopping district.
Figulina, Best New Restaurant
For chef-owner David Ellis, the opening of Figulina—one of just 30 selections by the Beard Foundation up for the title of America's best new restaurant—is both a pursuit of a new passion and a clever nod to his British roots.
At its core, Figulina is a handmade pasta shop—a cozy neighborhood spot in downtown Raleigh's Warehouse District meant for good wine and good times with family and friends (score a table at the bar for aperitivo hour, or on the patio this spring for the ultimate night out).
In addition to a selection of shareable small plates, the dinner menu features a half-dozen pasta options—rotating on a constant basis—made with local ingredients and influences from the South and beyond.
Recent menus have showcased some beautiful pasta shapes less commonly found—cappelletti, caramelle, rotolo, cappellachi and more. A peak into the open-view pasta room allows guests to see the delicate pasta making and shaping process first-hand.
Ellis—who previously held the title of chef de cuisine at Poole's Diner, perhaps Raleigh's most iconic restaurant—hails from Stoke-on-Trent, England, a city known for being the "world capital of ceramics." The name Figulina can translate from Latin to English as "potter's workshop," and it's fair to say the work within the pasta room is a chef's equivalent craft. You’ll find aesthetic nods to this connection throughout, from the handmade ceramic lights over the bar to the English pottery on display.
The 2025 James Beard Award semifinalists, selected from more than 20,000 nominations, were announced Wed., Jan. 22. The final nominees will be announced Wed., April 2, and the winners will be selected at the Restaurant and Chef Awards ceremony on June 16 in Chicago.
Header photo of Figulina by Sam Taylor
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Author: visitRaleigh
The Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) is the official and accredited destination marketing organization (DMO) for all of Wake County.