Let’s eat, Boise. Setting an Idaho record, four chefs nominated for James Beard Awards

The Treasure Valley’s ascendant restaurant scene just received a quadruple nod of affirmation.

Four chefs in the Boise area have been named semifinalists for the 2023 James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards.

It’s an Idaho record for number of chef nominees, breaking last year’s mark of three chefs and one baker.

Established in 1990, the James Beard Foundation Awards are widely regarded as the Oscars of the culinary universe. Being a James Beard semifinalist is potentially a career-changing honor.

The pared-down list of finalists will be revealed March 29. This year’s James Beard Awards winners will be crowned June 5 at the James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards ceremony in Chicago.

Here are the Gem State nominees.

▪ Salvador Alamilla — Amano, 702 Main St., Caldwell.

Born in Mexico and raised in Santa Ana, California, Alamilla also was nominated last year. Before starting Amano near Indian Creek Plaza with his wife, Becca, he managed the kitchen at a Whole Foods, then at Eureka in Boise. Since opening in a former bank lobby in 2019, Amano has earned a devoted following with painstakingly reverent, from-scratch Mexican cuisine.

▪ Dan Ansotegui — Ansots, 560 W. Main St., Boise.

This is the second recent dose of national recognition for Ansotegui, who also was a semifinalist last year. In early January, “CBS Saturday Morning” featured Ansotegui and his Basque restaurant, Ansots, on “The Dish.” Since opening in 2020, Ansots has served traditional Basque cuisine with a focus on chorizos. A key player on the Boise food scene for more than four decades, Ansotegui founded Bar Gernika in 1991, then the Basque Market eight years later. Many Boiseans know him as a Basque musician. In 2019, he was named a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellow.

▪ Kris Komori — Kin, 999 W. Main St., Boise.

If you live in Boise and follow the James Beard Awards, you know all about Komori. He’s been a James Beard semifinalist more times than any other Idaho chef. This is his fifth nod — all in less than a decade. Known for its ambitious prix-fixe menus, Kin opened its dining room in 2021. Could the time finally have come for Komori to become Idaho’s first James Beard finalist?

▪ Kibrom Milash — Kibrom’s Ethiopian & Eritrean Food, 3506 W. State St., Boise. Milash moved to Boise in 2013 from an Ethiopian refugee camp with his wife, Tirhas Hailu. After their first restaurant burned down in the Boise International Market, they started Kibrom’s on State Street in 2016. This is the first time Milash has been nominated as a semifinalist, but it’s not a surprise. Along with Ansots and Kin, Kibrom’s was name-checked by Food & Wine last year in an article touting Boise as one of “America’s Next Great Food Cities.”

Finalists? Finally?

All four Idaho chefs were nominated in the James Beard Awards’ mountain region, which includes five states and 20 semifinalists. Colorado, Utah and Montana each had five nominees; Idaho had four; Wyoming had one.

Will one of Idaho’s semifinalists finally make it to the next level? It would be historic for the Gem State.

The odds are long. But they feel better with each passing meal.

Think of the James Beard Awards in the same fashion that Komori pondered Food & Wine’s article calling Boise one of America’s next great food cities. Maybe the City of Trees hasn’t truly reached that level yet? But the goal feels achievable. Sooner rather than later.

Speaking of Boise’s potential elite food city status, Komori told the Statesman in 2022: “I think it can get there. I don’t think it’s necessarily the next year. But in the next few years. We have positive momentum.”