Michelin stars are all the rage, but Tampa’s culinary scene has something new to celebrate this week.
Bryce Bonsack, chef at Michelin-starred Tampa Heights Italian restaurant Rocca, is among the nominees in the 2026 James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards—with winners to be announced on June 15 during a ceremony in Chicago.
Bonsack, who is also involved at South Tampa’s Bar Terroir, is one of six finalists in the running for “Best Chef: South.”
The only other Florida finalists on the 2026 James Beard list are Maria La Mota and Chason Spencer from Jacksonville Ecuadorian restaurant Chancho King.
While Green Bench Brewing’s Webb’s City Cellar broke the curse last year. The local food and drink scene had been in something of a James Beard drought over the last few years.
Not since 2019 was a Bay area chef even mentioned in the Beard award conversation. That was when St. Petersburg chef Rachel Bennett of The Library was named a Rising Star Chef of the Year while Jeannie Pierola, chef-owner behind Tampa’s Edison: Food+Drink Lab, nabbed a Best Chef: South semifinalist spot.
In 2017, Columbia Restaurant Group President Richard Gonzmart was a semifinalist in the Outstanding Restaurateur category. Rooster & the Till’s Ferrell Alvarez and Clearwater chef Chris Ponte were also semifinalists for Best Chef: South that year.
That’s the same year Greg Baker of The Refinery and Fodder & Shine was named semifinalist for Best Chef: South in 2015.
Baker, who can be seen publicly these days in the punk-rock band Unruly Industry, is the Bay area’s most Bearded chef, with recognition going back to the early 2010s.
The Tampa Bay area has not had a finalist in the running for a James Beard since since 2015 when Tampa’s Bern’s Steak House was a finalist for Outstanding Wine Program. A16 in San Francisco won that year, but Bern’s took the award a year later, adding to the Outstanding Wine Service Beard award it earned in 1992.
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This article appears in Mar. 26 – Apr. 1.