Last year, the usually staid and stuff James Beard Awards — the Oscars of the restaurant biz — reached out and pushed a little on their nominee envelope by including Zack Gross of St. Petersburg's Z Grille on their Best Chef: South short list, as well as Sarasota's Derek Barnes (Derek's Culinary Casual). Neither made the it to the big game (the first list are actually pre-nominees) but it was nice merely to be pre-nominated.
The Beard Foundation just announced the pre-nominees for the 2010 awards and the Gulf Coast got another nod. Just one. And not in the Bay area. Longboat Key's Jose Martinez of Maison Blanche made the first cut, and deservedly so.
For years, I've proclaimed Maison Blanche the best restaurant in the Tampa-Sarasota corridor, mainly because of Martinez's drive to perfect every dish. That work ethic was forged in a the cut-throat Paris dining scene, where his first restaurant (also called Maison Blanche) was awarded a Michelin star.
When he decided to step back a bit to spend more time with his family, he chose the Sarasota area. Why? Four years ago, when I first interviewed him, he told me that Sarasota had nothing like what he wanted to do.
He was right. Martinez's modern French cuisine puts other fine-dining chefs in the area to shame. And when I cooked with him for our $20 Menu Challenge a few years back (which is where the photo comes from), I couldn't believe what he could with a few bucks and a trip to the supermarket.
Congratulations, Jose. Here's to breaking through to the finals.
Check out the rest of the semi-finalists for all the James Beard Restaurant Awards after the break:
This article appears in Feb 17-23, 2010.