Anthony Camera
Audio By Carbonatix
Colorado has five finalists up for James Beard Foundation restaurant awards this year, and now you can add a sixth hometown hero to the list: Adrian Miller is a finalist in the Feature Reporting category of the James Beard media awards.
Miller, who’s known as the Soul Food Scholar,” previously won James Beard awards for his books Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time and Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue.
This is his first nomination in a journalism category; the entry is his October 2025 Southern Living article, “The Unwritten Chapters of Charleston Receipts.”
That piece examines the legacy of Charleston Receipts, the community cookbook first published in 1950 in Charleston, South Carolina. Miller’s reporting explores the cookbook’s cultural significance while also investigating the overlooked contributions of Black cooks and Gullah Geechee culinary traditions that helped shape Charleston’s food culture.
“I’m deeply honored by this nomination,” says Miller. “This story became an opportunity to explore not only a beloved Southern cookbook, but also the broader questions of memory, recognition, and whose stories get preserved within American food history.”
The other finalists in the Feature Reporting category are Lenore Adkins of the Washington Post and Boyce Upholt of Food & Environment Reporting Network and Inc. Magazine.
The 2026 James Beard journalism awards will be presented in Chicago on June 13, two days before the restaurant winners are announced. The Colorado finalists for those awards in the Best Chef: Mountain category are Penelope Wong of Yuan Wonton and Johnny Curiel (for the Michelin-starred Alma Fonda Fina). McLain Hedges and Mary Allison Wright, owners of Yacht Club and newcomer Rougarou, are finalists in the Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service category. Longtime Barolo Grill owner and sommelier Ryan Fletter is a finalist in the Outstanding Professional in Beverage Service category.
And for the second year in a row, Josh Niernberg of Bin 707 Foodbar in Grand Junction is representing the Western Slope in a big way as a finalist in the Outstanding Chef category.
