In a ceremony in Chicago Monday night, Cristina Martinez looked at moments as if she might lose her composure, holding up the medal she’d just won like a totem or a shield.
The chef and owner of famed Philadelphia taqueria South Philly Barbacoa had just been named Best Chef in the Mid-Atlantic region at the James Beard Awards — the most renowned restaurant prize in America, long considered the “Oscars” of the food world.
“For me, it’s an honor to win this award, remembering all the immigrant workers in our industry,” said Martinez in her acceptance speech, speaking in Spanish to the food glitterati in attendance and a national audience on a live Twitter feed.
Martinez is a strong advocate for immigrant’s rights and an undocumented immigrant herself, emigrating from the town of Capulhuac near the central Mexican city of Toluca.
Famously, she lost her job at a bistro in Philadelphia when her immigration status was discovered — and resorted to selling her homemade barbacoa on a street corner before opening South Philly Barbacoa with partner and husband Ben Miller in 2015.
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Acclaim was near immediate, landing her cash-only taqueria on Bon Appetit’s list of the best new restaurants in America.
South Philly Barbacoa soon earned visits from Netflix series “Chef’s Table,” Spanish-language network Univision, Andrew Zimmern’s “What’s Eating America” and David Chang’s show “Ugly Delicious.”
Years later, lines for her weekend-only tacos and nopales still swing around the block on sunny days.
Martinez was nominated as Best Chef in the Mid-Atlantic twice before winning this year, a consistent street-food outlier among James Beard awards that often go to more formal and expensive fare.
But as partner Miller often points out in interviews, the taqueria’s no-frills presentation belies hours of preparation that would befuddle many white-linen restaurants. To make the rich and tangy nopales, countless pads of cactus must first be painstakingly plucked of their spines. Each salsa’s tomatoes or tangy tomatillos are charred and stewed and chilled daily.
Tortillas arrive replete with the aroma of fresh and indigenous corn, harvested in some cases by the restaurant’s own cooks. The kitchen softens the corn with alkaline lime, grinding and pressing the resulting masa into perhaps hundreds of tortillas in a day.
More:Ancient corn, amazing tortillas: new business owned by undocumented immigrants in Pennsylvania
The restaurant’s namesake barbacoa must first be broken down from whole lamb, marinated for hours in secret herb and spice and steamed to aching softness.
The result is a humble taco, gone in four swift bites, now hung with the medallion of the biggest prize in American food.
Sea change in James Beard Awards
South Philly Barbacoa was one of two taquerias to receive a Beard Award this year, however. Edgar Rico, of Nixta Taqueria in Austin, Texas, was granted the prize for Best Emerging Chef, an emblem of a much-changed James Beard Awards in 2022.
In 2020, the James Beard Foundation notoriously canceled all awards for that year and the next, citing the hardships of the pandemic.
This move coincided with a broad reckoning for the restaurant industry after racial unrest following the police murder of George Floyd, and accusations of misbehavior among some of the nation’s most famous chefs.
An article in New York Times that year reported that no Black chefs were due to win James Beard Awards in 2020, citing anonymous sources, and that a number of other nominees were embroiled in accusations that ranged from sexual harassment to systematic mistreatment of workers.
The awards have also fielded criticism over the years for favoring white and male chefs. The re-configured James Beard Awards this year showed dramatically different results, after diversifying the body’s pool of award voters and removing many legacy voters,
A strong majority of individual winners in the food media awards, unveiled on Saturday, were people of color..
The majority of chefs who received prizes Monday were likewise people of color. Chef Robynne Maii’s win as Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific for her Honolulu restaurant, Fête, marked Hawaii’s first award in nearly two decades.
Multiple Black and Asian and Hispanic chefs were honored, as was Native American restaurant Owamni in Minneapolis, named best new restaurant in the country.
Acclaimed Georgia chef Mashama Bailey — awarded as Best Chef: Southeast in 2019 — was honored natioanlly as Outstanding Chef for her Savannah restaurant The Grey.
In the Philadelphia region, the other big winner honored alongside Martinez was Corinne Bradley-Powers of Camden’s Corrine’s Place, a longtime New Jersey favorite for fried chicken and ribs whose America’s Classics prize was first announced in February.
“God is good. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it,” Bradley-Powers told the Courier-Post at the time.
Earlier:NJ Restaurants: James Beard Foundation nominates two South Jersey restaurants, SJ native
In her acceptance speech, South Philly Barbacoa’s Martinez seemed to position her prize as a vindication for the many undocumented immigrants who have long worked in the kitchens of many of the finest restaurants in the country.
“Many other restaurants have some undocumented workers,” she told the assembled crowd. “I want to recognize these immigrants as the backbone of support for those who work to sustain the industry.”
She thanked immigrants for their work, alongside farmers who grow the food.
“It’s an honor for me to be here representing Philadelphia,” she said. “As a Mexican. And as an immigrant. Thank you.”
Matthew Korfhage is a food and culture reporter for the USA TODAY Network’s Atlantic Region How We Live team. Email: mkorfhage@gannettnj.com | Twitter: @matthewkorfhage. For unlimited access to the most important news, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
