Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Food

Michael Solomonov Wins Outstanding Chef At Beard Awards

How I wish I’d put money on who would win Outstanding Chef of the Year at last night’s James Beard Foundation Awards. If I had, I’d have pulled in the big bucks, because my bet was on Michael Solomonov.

And he won.

Solomonov is, of course, the Israeli-born Philadelphia phenom behind Zahav, Abe Fisher, Federal Donuts, Dizengoff, Rooster Soup Co. and the brand new Goldie.

We at the Forward had already recognized his primary place in the food world in 2011, when he was named one of the Forward 50.

As his star continued to rise, we covered his accomplishments from the cookbook to the Israeli food film to the opening of new restaurants in the CookNSolo group he owns with Steve Cook. I was so intrigued by everything I’d heard and read, that I recently made a little pilgrimage to Philly to see what all the fuss was about.

What follows is a compilation of our coverage. Meanwhile, a huge mazel tov to Solomonov on this much deserved accolade.

Liza Schoenfein is food editor at the Forward. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter, @LifeDeathDinner

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.