Only One Texan Won at the 2024 James Beard Awards

Texas walked away with just one medallion at the James Beard Foundation awards ceremony last night. The near wipeout disappointed many Texas viewers of the gala, which was streamed live on YouTube, especially because the state had initially done well in January, with 39 semifinalist nods. The festivities were held at the Chicago Lyric Opera.

The winner of the lone Texas prize, for Best Chef: Texas, was a thrilled and emotional Ana Liz Pulido, owner of a three-year-old restaurant, Ana Liz Taqueria, in Mission, a city of 87,000 residents. In her acceptance speech, she said, “The first person I want to thank is my dad,” a taqueria owner. “I’m so grateful and honored to represent the Rio Grande Valley,” she continued. “We are a small town in South Texas just minutes from the border with Mexico.” Then she switched to Spanish to thank “todos mis trabajadores y mi familia”—all my workers and my family—and ended with an enthusiastic “¡Víva México!”

In a story about Pulido in this magazine in 2022, taco editor José R. Ralat recounted how in 2016 the eighteen-year-old had opened a snack shop in Mission, and then followed that up by moving to San Antonio to attend and graduate from the Culinary Institute of America. Returning home, she opened her own small place in a strip mall in 2021, selling tacos, quesadillas, tortas, and more. Ralat quotes her as saying, “I knew I wanted food to be of high quality and fresh,” which meant cooking food from scratch. She even learned how to make her own masa from whole-kernel corn. 

When I spoke to Ralat after Pulido’s win, he had this to say: “It’s clear that great food is great food, whether its trappings include white tablecloths or counter service. The same goes for its location. The finest dining isn’t relegated to big cities. In Texas, at least, the best chef is a woman who owns a restaurant on the Texas-Mexico border.”

This year’s outcome at the Beard awards was almost an exact repeat of the results in 2023, when the only prize won was for Best Chef: Texas, after 41 semifinalist nods. That year’s winner was Benchawan Jabthong Painter, of Houston Thai restaurant Street to Kitchen. By contrast, 2022 was an excellent year, with Texas winning two national awards out of 38 semifinalist nominations. Those two winners were Edgar Rico of Austin’s Nixta Taqueria, for Emerging Chef, and Julep, in Houston, for Outstanding Bar Program.

The full list of 2024 winners from around the country can be found here.