Which Area Restaurants Are 2022 James Beard Award Semifinalists

BIRMINGHAM, AL — The culinary world's top honors — the James Beard Awards — again have honored some Birmingham metro businesses among the semifinalists lists. The 2022 James Beard semifinalists were announced Wednesday.

Winners will be celebrated at the James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards ceremony on Monday, June 13, 2022, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Three Birmingham-area businesses are represented in the list of semifinalists:

• Johnny's Restaurant in Homewood is a semifinalists in the Outstanding Hospitality category.
• Golden Age Wine in Mountain Brook made the semifinalist list in the Outstanding Wine Program category.
• Adam Evans of Automatic Seafood and Oysters in Birmingham was nominated for Best Chef, South Region (which includes Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, MIssissippi and Puerto Rico).

Birmingham's culinary community is no stranger to the James Beard wards.

Automatic Seafood and Oysters was a finalist for the 2020 James Beard Awards in the Best New Restaurant category, and Tim Hontzas of Johnny's Restaurant was a semifinalist for Best Chef in 2019.

Highlands Bar & Grill, which won the 2018 Outstanding Restaurant Award, had been a finalist in that category since 2009 before winning the award. And Highlands' Dolester Miles, chosen as the nation's Outstanding Pastry Chef in 2018, was a nominee from 2016-18.

See the full list of 2022 James Beard semifinalists here.