The Outstanding Restaurateur category is described as "a restaurateur who uses their establishment(s) as a vehicle for building community, demonstrates creativity in entrepreneurship, integrity in restaurant operations, and is making efforts to create a sustainable work culture, while contributing positively to their broader community."
Kelly Whitaker, owner of Id Est Hospitality (right), with the group's director of fermentation, Mara King.
Jeff Fierberg
The Best Chef: Mountain category spans Colorado, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. It also includes five finalists, two of them from Colorado.
Matt Vawter, the former longtime chef at Alex Seidel's Mercantile, is listed for his restaurant Rootstalk, which he opened in Breckenridge in December 2020. He also debuted Radicato in the mountain town in 2023, and both restaurants have proven to be hits.
Chef (or "shef," as she likes to say) Penelope Wong worked her way up the ranks for two decades and became the first female and youngest executive chef at Glenmoor Country Club in Cherry Hills Village before launching her own food truck, Yuan Wonton, in late 2019. She was one of our people to watch in 2023 as she worked toward opening her first brick-and-mortar, which debuted in Park Hill last September.
Colorado also had thirteen semifinalists last year — but just one finalist, former Brutø executive chef Michael Diaz de Leon, who did not end up winning.
This year's award winners will be announced at a ceremony on June 10 in Chicago.
