Food

Israeli-American Chef Wins James Beard Award

Image by Flickr

By JTA May 5, 2015

James Beard Award-winning chef Alon Shaya.

Israeli-American chef Alon Shaya was named best chef in the South by the James Beard Foundation.

Shaya, 37, broke through as the winner after being a finalist in the category for the past three years.

He was recognized for his work as the executive chef at the Domenica restaurant in New Orleans, which he opened in 2009 with the prominent chef and restaurateur John Besh. His newly opened Shaya restaurant in the same city offers an Israeli-inspired menu using local ingredients.

Shaya moved with his family from Israel to Philadelphia when he was four years old. He attended the Culinary Institute of America in New York.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO