Cincinnati’s surprising finalists

Cincinnati did not just sneak one chef onto the 2026 James Beard finalist list. It landed Sarah Dworak of Sudova and Jeffery Harris of Nolia Kitchen in Best Chef: Great Lakes, while nearby Newport, Kentucky, added David Willocks of The Baker’s Table in Best Chef: Southeast. (jamesbeard.org) That is a big showing for one metro area because the James Beard Foundation named only five finalists in each regional Best Chef category, and two of the five Great Lakes slots went to Cincinnati chefs. The winners will be announced on June 15, 2026, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. (jamesbeard.org) The surprise is not that Cincinnati has restaurants. It is that a city usually overshadowed in Great Lakes food talk by Chicago suddenly has multiple finalists from smaller, personality-driven spots instead of one giant flagship restaurant group. (jamesbeard.org) (cincinnatimagazine.com) Sudova is not an old institution. Sarah Dworak opened the Court Street restaurant on August 29, 2024, after building her name with Babushka’s Pierogies and Wódka Bar, and the restaurant centers contemporary Eastern European food tied to her Ukrainian heritage. (usatoday.com) (cincinnatimagazine.com) Nolia Kitchen tells a different Cincinnati story. Jeffery Harris is a New Orleans native and former sous chef at Emeril’s who settled in Cincinnati after Hurricane Katrina, and his Over-the-Rhine restaurant serves Southern food shaped by that background rather than a generic comfort-food menu. (cincinnatichamber.com) (noliakitchen.com) Harris is not new to the Beard radar. He was nominated for Best Chef: Great Lakes in 2024, and Nolia Kitchen was a finalist for Best New Restaurant in 2023, which makes this year’s finalist jump look more like a steady climb than a one-week fluke. (cincinnatimagazine.com) Willocks rounds out the local overperformance from just across the river. The Baker’s Table in Newport put him into Best Chef: Southeast, giving Greater Cincinnati three chef finalists even though the metro is split across two Beard regions because Kentucky is judged with the Southeast while Ohio is judged with the Great Lakes. (cincinnatimagazine.com) (jamesbeard.org) That split is what makes the result look even stranger at first glance. Cincinnati itself produced two of the Great Lakes finalists, and the closest suburb on the Kentucky side produced a Southeast finalist, so one local dining scene showed up on two different regional ballots at the same time. (jamesbeard.org) (wcpo.com) There is also a timing angle here. Sudova opened less than two years before making the finalist list, while Harris kept Nolia in the conversation long enough to turn earlier nominations into another national look, which suggests voters are rewarding both breakout momentum and staying power. (usatoday.com) (cincinnatimagazine.com) Dworak’s nomination also adds a small but concrete milestone for the city. Cincinnati Magazine reported that she is the fourth woman from the area ever nominated for a James Beard Award, after Suzy DeYoung in 2018, Elaine Uykimpang Bentz in 2022 and 2023, and Yuko Harada in 2023. (cincinnatimagazine.com) So the story is not just that Cincinnati got noticed. It is that three chefs from the Cincinnati-Newport orbit reached the 2026 finals from restaurants that are specific in voice, small in footprint, and strong enough to break into a conversation that usually bends toward bigger food capitals. (jamesbeard.org) (cincinnatimagazine.com)