Chef Edouardo Jordan on Life After the Awards
Photo Caption: Shrimp and grits on the menu at Seattle's Junebaby.
Skift Take
Fresh off a year of two James Beard Awards and accolades from local and national press, Seattle’s Edouardo Jordan settles in to what happens next: More customers, new expectations and building a future.
It didn’t really hit until Edouardo Jordan got back to Seattle from Chicago last May, when he picked up two James Beard Awards for his Seattle restaurants: Best New Restaurant for the Southern-inflected Junebaby, and Best Chef in the Northwest, a nod to his first restaurant Salare.
On the stage and at the after-party, it was pure elation. Back home, it was back to work.
“Once we got off the plane, I told my team we show up, we win, we’ll go back and make great food. Nothing changes,” the chef recalled. “We still produce the same type of food and offer the same service.”
The wins were pretty sweet punctuation on an already big year for Jordan. With Salare steady, his sophomore effort, a love letter to his Florida upbringing and Southern roots (Junebaby was his father’s nickname), received tons of press, including local buzz, a three-star review in the New York Times and Eater’s Best New Restaurant of the Year in 2017. The restaurant was busy almost immediately after i
