The 2026 James Beard Awards on Monday, June 15, landed in the year when the industry they celebrate has been living under a different kind of pressure: ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has been raiding businesses and restaurants across the city
and elsewhere, and the people most at risk are those who make New York dining what it is. It’s impossible to look at this list without thinking about this backdrop, this year.
While 12New York City nominees made it to the final round, only three New York spots won awards.
The most exciting win for many New Yorkers is the Best Chef: New York State award to Hooni Kim of Meju in Long Island City – perhaps the first James Beard win for Queens. Kim’s win is a reminder that the international food capital of the world has a dining scene that deserves the same attention as its neighboring boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Kim is the restaurateur behind Little Banchan Shop, which houses Meju, as well as the precursor Danjiin Midtown. His win landed in a stacked field that included Fidel Caballero ofCorima, Giovanni Cervantes of Carnitas Ramirez, Ayesha Nurdjaja of Shukette, and Joshua Pinsky of Claud.
“Meju is a restaurant in Queens, New York,” Kim said in his acceptance speech. “I live across the street, and I consider Queens my home. And if anybody has had the pleasure to eat in Queens, you know that it is the ethnic food capital of the world.” He noted he represents the borough’s mom-and-pop restaurants. “This,” he says, “is for us.”
Among Best New Restaurants, Lei, the Chinese American wine bar that Annie Shi opened on Doyers Street in Chinatown last June, took home the honor. It’s Shi’sfirst independent project, separate from her partnerships at King and Jupiter, and it shows: The 24-seat space, with chef Patty Lee running an all-electric kitchen, is precise and considered. The menu is small — chilled celtuce with kombu jelly, cat’s ear noodles with braised lamb, and an eight-treasure pudding that arrives with a pour of sticky toffee sauce over vanilla ice cream. The wine list is equally thoughtful; as Eater NY’s Nadia Chaudhury noted in her dining report, the team knows their wine, so trust their glass recommendations. Shi’s vision for Lei was always to be complementary to the neighborhood rather than competitive with it — a place to stop for a glass before or after dinner somewhere else on the block.
New York icon Lee Campbell of Borgo won Outstanding Professional in Beverage Service: While she wasn’t at the ceremony in Chicago — she was back in New York – announcer from Savannah’s the Grey, Mashama Bailey, accepted it on her behalf with a “Go Knicks.”
“I sincerely appreciate this tremendous recognition, not just for me and the Borgo family, but for anyone who wonders if truly being yourself can reap professional reward,” Campbell emailed Eater once she learned about her win. “I’m here to say that it quite literally does. I’ve been raised and mentored by some wonderful people who taught me that the service was the point. And so I will just continue to go where I feel I am needed.”
Campbell built her reputation running the wine programs at first the now-closed iconic Gotham, then Andrew Tarlow’s restaurants — Diner, Marlow and Sons, and Reynard. She detoured to Virginia and came back to work at Borgo. She is widely credited as one of the most highly regarded wine directors in New York, with Resy citing her as “the mother of natural wine in New York restaurants.”
This year landed New York three awards, down from five awards last year.
Best Chef: New York State
- Hooni Kim,Meju, Long Island City
Best New Restaurant
- Lei, Chinatown
Outstanding Professional in Beverage Service
- Lee Campbell,Borgo, Nomad
Disclosure: Some Vox Media staff members are part of the voting body for the James Beard Foundation Awards.
