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Hai Hai chef Christina Nguyen won the James Beard Award for Best Chef, Midwest at this year’s Chicago ceremony on June 10. Nguyen was a semifinalist in the same category in 2018 (the same year Hai Hai opened) and 2023, and a finalist in 2020, but this is her first James Beard win.
In her acceptance speech, Nguyen thanked her teams, past and present; her husband and business partner, Birk Grudem, who helped her transform Northeast’s Deuce Deuce strip club into the restaurant Hai Hai is today (“I can’t imagine anybody else that I would want to do this with — thank you for fixing everything that breaks in restaurants,” she said); and her parents, who came to the U.S. as refugees from Vietnam and who, she said, have always had her back.
“They had to start their lives over from scratch when they moved here with no warning, and they’ve taught me that anything is possible; to not be afraid,” Nguyen said. “Thank you to the James Beard Foundation for recognizing the value of immigrant food. When we started our restaurant, the most that a Southeast Asian restaurant could hope for was ‘best cheap eats,’ and I feel like we’ve come a long way.”
Chef Ann Ahmed was also nominated in the Best Chef, Midwest category for her restaurant Khâluna; chefs Gustavo and Kate Romero were nominated in the national Best New Restaurant category for their restaurant Oro by Nixta. (That award went to New Orleans’s Dakar NOLA.) This year’s Beard semifinalist list included Marc Heu of Marc Heu Pâtisserie Paris (Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker), Karyn Tomlinson of Myriel (Best Chef, Midwest), Meteor (Outstanding Bar), and Dani del Prado of Porzana.
Disclosure: Some Vox Media staff members are part of the voting body for the James Beard Awards. Eater is partnering with the James Beard Foundation to livestream the awards in 2024. All editorial content is produced independently of the James Beard Foundation.
