Atsushi Hayakawa, Hayakawa
Outstanding Hospitality
Cooks & Soldiers
Best Chef: Southeast
Pete Amadhanirundr, Puma Yu’s (Athens)
Arnaldo Castillo, Tio Lucho’s
Erika Council, Bomb Biscuits
Rod Lassiter and Parnass Savang, Talat Market
Duane Nutter, Southern National
In addition, Kimball Brienza and Stephen Palmer, who own Indigo Road Hospitality Group, which has several restaurants in metro Atlanta, were named semifinalists in the Outstanding Restaurateur category. Palmer, an Atlanta native, is behind eateries including Indaco, Sukoshi, O-Ku and Oak Steakhouse. Palmer has also been recognized three times as a semifinalist in the same category.
Most of those who received nods are first-time semifinalists, including Puma Yu’s, Castillo, Council and Lassiter. Hayakawa, whose west Midtown restaurant received a Michelin star in late 2023, was named a semifinalist in the Best Chef category in 2015; Cooks & Soldiers was recognized in the Rising Star Chef of the Year category for then-chef Landon Thompson; and Nutter was a semifinalist in the Best Chef category in 2020 for his now-shuttered Mobile location of Southern National, and was the executive chef at One Flew South at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport when the restaurant was recognized as a semifinalist for Outstanding Service in 2014 and 2015.
Though this is Lassiter’s first time as a semifinalist, Savang received solo semifinalist recognition in 2018 for Rising Star Chef of the Year.
Atlanta is in position to recreate its victory from 2023, when Chef Terry Koval of Decatur restaurants the Deer and the Dove and B-Side won in the Best Chef: Southeast category. He was the only finalist from the metro area last year, though The Grey in Savannah was up for the Outstanding Restaurant honor.
Several restaurants and chefs who have made the cut as semifinalists multiple times in the past few years were absent from this year’s list, including Ticonderoga Club, Kimball House, Lyla Lila, Miller Union, Kevin Gillespie of…
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