Philly isn’t applying to host the James Beard Awards next. Some insiders say that’s a mistake

Philly may be among the James Beard Awards’ most valuable players, but it won’t be their next host.

The Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau — the organization that brought the Michelin Guide to Philly last year — doesn’t plan to pursue a bid to host the James Beard Foundation’s annual awards ceremony, a spokesperson told reporters Monday.

Considered to be the restaurant industry’s Oscars, the Beard Awards awards have celebrated the best in food service and media across the United States every spring since 1991.

The ceremony moved from New York City to Chicago in 2015, where it has been held with increasing fanfare for the past 11 years. Now, the awards are searching for a new city to take up the mantle for a 5-year term from 2029 through 2033.

“Recognition through the awards can be transformative — driving visibility, strengthening businesses, and creating new opportunities for recipients both immediately and over time," the Beard Foundation said last week in a statement announcing a request for information from potential host cities. “These benefits extend to the host destination as well: The multiday event showcases the local culinary community while generating national media attention and meaningful economic impact.”

Hosting the awards also comes with significant price tag: The Beard Foundation is asking interested cities to commit to spending a minimum of $4 million for the first year, with annual increases of up to 5% after. Cities can source the money through a mix of cash investment, sponsorships, and public sector funds.

Cities can send in preliminary information — including an estimate of hotel stock, prospective venues, and responses to short-answer questions — to the Beard Foundation through Aug. 7. Selected applicants will then be invited to submit official proposals. The next host will be announced in early 2027.

Philly has likely ruled itself out.

“Our mission is to attract citywide conventions, meetings, and major events that generate significant overnight visitation and hotel demand,” PHLVCB spokesperson Jaime Martorana wrote over email. “After reviewing the James Beard Awards’ event hosting requirements, we’ve determined they aren’t fully aligned with the PHLCVB’s mission and mandate.”

It’s unclear which hosting requirements don’t match up with PHLVCB’s mandate of bringing major events to Philly.

Reviewed by The Inquirer, the seven-part application asks cities to detail the high-profile events it has hosted in the last three years, outline its transit options, and explain how their restaurant scene upholds values of “culinary excellence, sustainability, inclusion, [and] accessibility.”

Philadelphia spent the past two months juggling nonstop major events, from six World Cup matches, the MLB All-Star Game, and, perhaps biggest of all, the nation’s 250th birthday. All the while, the city’s estimated 19,000 hotel rooms reached a record-high 90% occupancy rate as hundreds of thousands visited Philly. Even the delay-plagued, chronically-underfunded SEPTA rose to the occasion, with expanded service, free fare, and dance parties.

Philly is also a James Beard Award darling, fielding finalists nine out of the past 10 years. This June, Chef Chutatip “Nok” Suntaranon’s Thai restaurant, Kalaya, won outstanding restaurant, while Royal Sushi & Izakaya’s Jesse Ito was named best chef in the Mid-Atlantic, a region that spans New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

Visit Philadelphia, the city’s official tourism nonprofit, has worked with the James Beard Foundation since 2016, including hosting the 2020 nominee announcement and several dinner and marketing events in years since.

“It seems to me like we should at least be having a conversation about what the relative merits of hosting are, especially since the Beards have been very good to us,” said Jonathan Deutsch, the director of Drexel University’s Food Lab, who previously judged the Beard Awards media and leadership categories.

Deutsch and others in the local food scene say it’s a mistake for Philly to not throw its hat in the ring, forgoing at least a little bit of the momentum Philly has built as a destination for world-class dining and tourism. Freelance journalist and Inquirer contributor Adam Erace — who chaired the Beard Awards Mid-Atlantic subcommittee from 2010 to 2020 — highlighted that Philly’s status as a Northeast corridor city with a reliable airport makes it easy for nominees to commute.

Plus, he said, we’ve done this before, pointing out that the city hosted a Michelin Guide ceremony in November and routinely hosts the Chef Assembly (formerly Chef Conference), an annual convening of hospitality professionals from across the U.S.

“We’ve spent the past 10 years pushing as a city to grow. If anybody’s ready, we’re ready,” said chef Chad Williams, whose Rittenhouse Square restaurant Friday Saturday Sunday won outstanding restaurant in 2023 and was a finalist for outstanding bar in June.

In a few words: millions of dollars in economic impact.

The 2026 James Beard Awards in Chicago generated $8.3 million in direct spending from the operational costs associated with putting on the ceremony, plus offsite spending from attendees, according to a report the foundation commissioned from the Oxford Economics Company. That direct spending turned into $17 million in overall economic impact on the greater Chicago area, including $1.2 million in local and state tax revenue.

Erace and Deutsch, who have both attended the Beard Awards, describe it as a weekend of dinners, pre-parties, after-parties, and pop-ups that encourage attendees to eat and drink in the host city. This year’s awards included roughly 41 events in the days leading up to the ceremony, Illinois Restaurant Association president Sam Toia told the Chicago Sun-Times.

The restaurant awards’ voting body — composed of anonymous judges with industry experience selected via committee — are also only allowed to vote for restaurants they’ve eaten at in the past year, explained Erace. This gives Chicago a small leg up. Hosting the awards enables more judges to eat in the city and speak to its restaurants’ quality.

“It seems like a missed opportunity,” said Deutsch. “You have top chefs, journalists, cookbook authors, passionate foodies ... who are paying a couple of thousand dollars over the weekend for airfare, dining, and a hotel just to experience the awards.”

Last year, the convention and visitor’s bureau successfully bid to bring the Michelin Northeast Cities Guide — and its award ceremony — to Philly for the first time.

Provenance, Her Place Supper Club, and Williams’ Friday Saturday Sunday each earned their first star from the coveted gastronomic guide, with 31 other Philly restaurants falling among the guide’s Bib Gourmand and Recommended tiers. Most of them reported at least a modest increase in business right after.

“Now that the busiest period of our 2026 event calendar has concluded, we’ll be reconnecting with the restaurants and chefs recognized in the Guide to better understand how the first half the year performed and how Michelin recognition has supported their businesses,” Martorana said.

It’s still unclear how much courting the guide cost, or how much it boosted Philadelphia overall. PHLVCB declined to share how much it paid Michelin, and has yet to make data available about the spending generated by Michelin’s newfound Philadelphia presence.

Cities pay to be included in the Michelin Guide, often cobbling together funding from a mix of tourism organizations, public investment, and sponsorships. The price of admission is steep: Boston and Atlanta both paid upward of $1 million to bring the Michelin Guide to their cities, while Texas raised $2.7 million from Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Fort Worth and Houston to get a dedicated Texas guide. Some, like Virginia and Buffalo, rebuffed Michelin entirely, calling the fees unsustainable.

In Philly, the Michelin Guide and the James Beard Awards can appear to be an echo chamber, with the same set of restaurants receiving praise from both. Williams — whose restaurant Friday Saturday Sunday is the city’s only restaurant to receive a Michelin Star and a Beard Award — said each accolade generated “equal” bumps in reservations.

The sameness begs the question: Does Philly need both?

Deutsch wondered if the city’s decision to not go for the Beard Awards has to do with “fine-dining fatigue,” or if the powers that be feel like “they spent a lot of money to check that box for the next few years,” he said.

The Michelin Guide is technically the better bet — at least numbers-wise, Erace acknowledged.

“Thirty-something restaurants get some kind of recognition, and they can take that to the bank forever,” he said. “With the Beards, there’s only so many winners every year.”