Dozens of chefs, restaurateurs, bakers, bartenders, and others from all over the country gathered tonight in Chicago for the James Beard Awards ceremony. Seattle already knew it stood a slim chance of making the stage: The list of nominees held only three names from Washington state. For perspective: That’s fewer than Oklahoma (five), Rhode Island (four), and our sister state to the south, Oregon (six).

Still, just like we show up at Mariners games despite whatever it is they’ve been doing for the last two to five decades, we held out hope. Unfortunately, Seattle restaurants got handed their fourth straight shutout—the last chef award came in 2019, when then-Canlis chef (now Tomo) Brady Williams won for Best Chef Northwest. (The awards were mostly on hiatus in 2020 and 2021, though Rupee Bar did snag one for design in 2020’s online mini–ceremony).

With the Outstanding Hospitality category going to New York’s Atomix and Best New Restaurant to Minneapolis’s Bûcheron, Seattle’s two nominated restaurants in those categories—Archipelago and Seattle Met 2024 Restaurant of the Year, Atoma, respectively—missed their chances at a medal.

New York did well in general, winning two more of the biggest awards with Outstanding Restaurateur (Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr of Frenchette, Le Veau d'Or, and Le Rock) and Outstanding Chef (Jungsik Yim of Jungsik). The Outstanding Restaurant category finally tilted things westward with the final award of the night going to Boulder, Colorado’s Frasca Food and Wine.

Jay Blackinton, the pride of Orcas Island with his restaurant Houlme, was a finalist in the Best Chef Northwest and Pacific category and the third of Washington’s trio of nominees. He lost out to Timothy Wastell, the chef at Antica Terra, a winery in Amity, Oregon. The winery’s “A Very Nice Lunch” is featured in Seattle Met’s current summer issue, all about wine travel—coming soon online. An amuse-bouche to get you hungry for more:

These lunches are designed for lounging, for long, slow afternoons sipping wines and eating foods that precisely capture the terroir and ethos of Oregon, notably casual and free from any snobbery or expectations on the diners. Chef Tim Wastell dabs Hokkaido scallops with local wasabi and stuffs diced Oregon albacore inside lemon balm leaves. Osetra caviar and Alaskan spot prawns share the menu with housemade prosciutto draped over the freshest summer stone fruit.

Even if we can’t have nice things (or, more accurately, they can’t get national awards), at least our neighbors to the south made out well—in addition to Wastell at Antica Terra, Portland's JinJu Patisserie took home the national award in the Outstanding Bakery category.