Awards Watch: Changes to Restaurant Design Awards

by JBF Editors on February 26, 2013

The Restaurant Design categories of the James Beard Foundation Awards recognize design as an integral and essential element of the dining experience. During the last 15 years, a number of trend-setting and now iconic restaurants have received the Beard Foundation’s Restaurant Design Award, ranging from the highest fine-dining establishments to more casual spaces. Consistent among both winners and finalists is the mission of fully integrating design and cuisine. In recognition of the growing diversity of restaurant types, this year the Foundation will now name two winners for restaurant design: one for restaurants with 75 seats or under, and one for those with 76 or more seats.

“The Restaurant Design Award acknowledges the growing importance of good design in all types of dining establishments,” said Brooke Hodge, director of exhibitions and publications at Los Angeles’s Hammer Museum and chair of the James Beard Foundation’s Restaurant Design Committee. “These two new awards will allow us to recognize and reward a broader range of design talent.” Architecture, interior design, graphic design, and all other design aspects of a restaurant will now be considered comprehensively in each submission for restaurant design.