{"id":695301,"date":"2026-03-31T17:30:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T17:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/695301\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T17:30:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T17:30:20","slug":"culinary-school-of-fort-worth-grad-is-james-beard-finalist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/695301\/","title":{"rendered":"Culinary School of Fort Worth grad is James Beard finalist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two North Texas chefs have advanced to the next round of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jamesbeard.org\/stories\/james-beard-awards-restaurant-and-chef-nominees-2026\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">2026 James Beard Awards<\/a>. They are:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"ee-ul\">\n<li><strong>Scott Girling<\/strong><strong>, Osteria il Muro (Denton)<\/strong>, nominated for Best Chef: Texas<\/li>\n<li><strong>Maggie Huff, Lucia (Dallas), <\/strong>nominated for Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Of DFW&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/dallas.culturemap.com\/news\/restaurants-bars\/james-beard-award-semifinalist-nominations\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">eight semifinalist<\/a> nominations, announced in January, just the two were named finalists. In <a href=\"https:\/\/dallas.culturemap.com\/news\/restaurants-bars\/james-beard-chad-houser\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">2025<\/a>, six Dallas-Fort Worth chefs and restaurants made the finals.<\/p>\n<p>No chefs or restaurants <a href=\"https:\/\/fortworth.culturemap.com\/news\/restaurants-bars\/james-beard-fort-worth-snubbed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">from Fort Worth proper<\/a> were nominated in 2026. Patrick Hicks, chef-owner of Smoke&#8217;N Ash BBQ in Arlington, was a semifinalist.<\/p>\n<p>Girling&#8217;s Osteria il Muro is a tiny but mighty authentic Italian restaurant that draws legions of fans from all over North Texas for housemade pastas and creative, chef-driven dishes; their strict reservation policy is outlined on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.osteriamuro.com\/?fbclid=IwY2xjawQ43HhleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETE0ankzMjlqWDdyR21NYXpqc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHnWFTihJ10piVqcFtMmGfXx7nKG-qpNM9S9tEwtnzY4nMstQvWvtITj3I36j_aem_sOtS2kuszpP10qOHPKyObg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">homepage<\/a> of their website.<\/p>\n<p>Girling graduated from the Culinary School of Fort Worth before moving to Calabria, Italy to study at the Italian Culinary Institute, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/voyagedallas.com\/interview\/meet-scott-girling-of-osteria-il-muro\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Voyage Dallas interview<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Notably, Girling and Lucia are also <a href=\"https:\/\/dallas.culturemaptastemakers.com\/#nominees\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">nominated<\/a> for 2026 CultureMap Dallas Tastemaker Awards, which will be announced May 7 at Astoria Event Venue in Irving. (The Fort Worth <a href=\"https:\/\/fortworth.culturemaptastemakers.com\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">event<\/a> is April 30 at Social Space.)<\/p>\n<p>Considered the Oscars of the food world, the James Beard Foundation announced the finalists for its Restaurant and Chef Awards on Tuesday, March 31. The awards recognize excellence by chefs and other culinary professionals in a wide range of categories ranging from Outstanding Chef to Best New Restaurant. <\/p>\n<p>Winners must also have \u201cdemonstrated commitment to racial and gender equity, community, sustainability, and a culture where all can thrive,\u201d according to the organization\u2019s website.<\/p>\n<p>Texas, as a whole,  had an impressive showing in the finals. Here are all of the Texas nominees in the national categories:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"ee-ul\">\n<li><strong>Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker<\/strong>:<strong> Maggie Huff, Lucia (Dallas)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Emerging Chef<\/strong>: Adrian Torres, Maximo (Houston)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Best New Restaurant<\/strong>: Agnes and Sherman (Houston)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Outstanding Professional in Beverage Service<\/strong>: June Rodil, March (Houston)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker<\/strong>: Tavel Bristol-Joseph, Nicosi (San Antonio)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Outstanding Restaurateur<\/strong>: Hugo Ortega and Tracy Vaught, H-Town Restaurant Group (Houston)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Outstanding Restaurant<\/strong>: Mixtli (San Antonio)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The finalists for Best Chef: Texas are:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"ee-ul\">\n<li><strong>Scott Girling<\/strong>, <strong>Osteria il Muro (Denton)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Ope Amosu<\/strong>, Ch\u00f2pnBl\u1ecdk (Houston)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Evelyn Garcia and Henry Lu<\/strong>, J\u016aN (Houston)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Gabe Padilla and Melissa Padilla<\/strong>, Cafe Piro (Socorro)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Finn Walter<\/strong>, The Nicolett (Lubbock)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Impressively, nearly all of the Texas nominees are first-time finalists.<\/p>\n<p>The Restaurant and Chef Awards ceremony will be held at the Lyric Opera of Chicago on June 15.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>Stephanie Allmon Merry contributed to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two North Texas chefs have advanced to the next round of the 2026 James Beard Awards. They are:&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":695302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,5800,27144,7371,7372,101553,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-695301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-america","tag-awards","tag-chefs","tag-fort-worth","tag-fortworth","tag-james-beard-awards","tag-texas","tag-tx","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116324979817163117","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}