Food fanatics, rejoice! Bon Appétit has pivoted away from their “Hot 10” list to celebrate those who are changing the future of the restaurant world. The celebrated food magazine traditionally compiles a top 10 list. This year’s circumstances were, well, unprecedented. As such, the name of the game has shifted to recognizing the growing wave of community driven projects that don’t just feed those empty bellies but also feed the collective soul.
Dawn Davis, Editor in Chief, reflects on the shift. “This was such a challenging and unprecedented year for restaurants, but one that also provided a lot of hope and change across the industry. Instead of putting together our annual Hot 10 list recognizing the Top 10 best new restaurants across the country, this year we felt it made more sense to go beyond outstanding food and great atmosphere and really rethink what it means to be an outstanding restaurant.”
The Restaurant Issue of Bon Appetit.
Dawn Davis hosted an intimate dinner October 14th to celebrate the award winners and their contributions to their communities. The awards they received are listed below and highlight the important roles they played.
2021’s Heads of the Table:
- The Legislator: Francesca Hong
- The Guardian Angel: Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation
- The Second Chance Supporter: Down North Pizza
- The LGBTQ+ Hub: Ursula
- The Food Waste Hero: Sullivan Scrap Kitchen
- The Egalitarian: Reem’s California
- The Local-est of the Local: Farm Club
- The Hospitality Hero: Lucille’s and Lucille’s 1913
- The Chinatown Champion: Send Chinatown Love
- The Back-of-House Advocate: No Us Without You LA
- The Somm Savior: The United Sommeliers Foundation
- The Better World Builder: The LEE Initiative
So why the pivot? See below for a Q & A with those honored and more.
DAWN DAVIS, EDITOR IN CHIEF, BON APPETIT
My team and I had a brainstorm and asked ourselves who was making the industry better and who are the leaders helping their communities most? From there, we came up with the list of twelve restaurants, leaders, and organizations across the country that stood out the most.
Which project, or projects, hit closest to home?
They’re all doing incredibly impactful work. So it depends on the day. When I’m in a restaurant and a sommelier makes a particularly outstanding suggestion, I think of the United Sommelier Foundation, which supports sommeliers, who often work as a jack of all trades in a restaurant but are also the first to get laid off when times are tough. When I think of the time I spent trying to get groceries to my mother in the early days of the pandemic, I think of Lucille’s 1913, founded by Chris Williams who supported his community in various ways, including helping the elderly.
No Us Without You LA, is a nonprofit organization based in my native city, helps back-of-the-house workers, a population often overlooked if you exclude chefs. Now, in their 19th month in operation, they’ve fed over 1,600 families in Los Angeles — and they aim to keep going for as long as they can. I also think the work Terence Rogers and Holly Adinoff are doing at Sullivan Scrap Kitchen—helping to eliminate food waste and help the environment—is such important and timely work. As we look to the future of the restaurant industry, I hope we’ll continue to see more restaurants move toward sustainable food practices and climate conscious cooking.
Attendees at the Bon Appetit dinner to honor The Heads of the Table.
LINDSEY OFCACEK, CO-FOUNDER, MANAGING DIRECTOR, MENTOR, THE LEE INITIATIVE
What was the spark, or specific incident/thought, that set your project into motion?
Chef Edward Lee and I started The LEE Initiative in 2017 in response to the "Me Too" movement hitting our industry, an industry that we love, one that we are raising our families in, and one that we believe can thrive with more women in leadership roles. We decided that coming together and building a community of women to support one another and providing mentorship was the way to do that. We had announced our third class of mentees in 2020, when restaurants were again in crisis. Again, we pulled together our resources and launched direct aid restaurant relief through meal programs, farm relief, and grants, all in the spirit of empowering employment and creating a more kind and equitable restaurant community. Through this journey we have learned that as a small organization, made up of all hospitality professionals, we have the resources to make real change and support the community that we love, we hope that these programs will be the seeds that create a more equitable and sustainable future for the restaurant industry.
From Left to Right: Michael Remaley (Board VP & Fundraising Committee Chair, Restaurant Workers' ... [+]
ERIC SEE, CHEF/OWNER, URSULA, BROOKLYN NY
What was the spark, or specific incident/thought, that set your project into motion?
While the ability to share space and resources with other queer chefs was set into motion by the literal and physical opening of Ursula, the ideology for the business and pop-ups is rooted in decades of discrimination in the workplace against Black, POC, queer and trans folks, where we have often been trivialized, passed up for opportunities, hiring, or promotions, not taken seriously, or are often on the receiving end of harmful and discriminatory kitchen behavior and sexual harassment. The model of business at Ursula is intended to counteract the harmful norms of our industry and set the precedence for holding and creating safe creative space for everyone, and not just some.
How do you see your work continuing in the coming months and/or years?
Finding sustainable ways to continue to grow a platform for resources sharing within the community, continuing to work within the business to educate myself my team on anti-racist and non-discriminatory behavior, continuing to have conversations with, collaborate with, and participate in community, and constantly reflecting on how we can continue to build a better reality for all of us working in the hospitality industry. We will also continue to use our platform and resources to support mutual aid organizations working to feed and support marginalized communities in Brooklyn and organizations like The Ali Forney Center to help provide meals and shelter to homeless LGBTQ+ youth in NYC and Brooklyn.
MUHAMMAD ABDUL-HADI, DOWN NORTH PIZZA OWNER AND FOUNDER MICHAEL CARTER, EXECUTIVE CHEF, DOWN NORTH PIZZA
What was the spark, or specific incident/thought, that set your project into motion?
“The initial spark came from me canvassing the neighborhood (Strawberry Mansion) of the building that I purchased and watching the constant deterioration of it. My intent when I purchased the building was always to bring something there that would uplift and serve the community—not just take from it. The fact that it was a food desert also weighed heavy on my mind.
As I was thinking about and building out the concept of Down North Pizza, I came into my own set of legal troubles. That experience shone a brighter light on the complexity and injustices within the carceral system. I focused on reducing recidivism as a mission for Down North Pizza, because it was an area that I knew I could affect immediate change and have real positive impact on the lives of those formerly incarcerated.”
How do you see your work continuing in the coming months and/or years?
“Unfortunately, there is no shortage of Black communities like North Philly impacted by the carceral system. My focus in the coming months and years is to build and expand the brand, in underserved communities across the U.S.
Also, with all the visibility put upon Down North Pizza, success to me is influencing other business owners and companies to do an internal check of their hiring practices and recognize areas where they could make positive change too. What I am doing alongside my team is not hard, but it is just.”
