James Beard Awards names Owamni this year's best new restaurant

Owamni won best new restaurant at the James Beard Awards Monday night, beating out 10 competitors across the country for one of the industry's highest honors.

The big picture: The full-service Indigenous restaurant in Minneapolis has received local and national acclaim since opening in 2021, including a spot on the New York Times' Restaurants List.

What he's saying: "I was so surprised, but I am very proud," chef and co-owner Sean Sherman told Axios Chicago's Monica Eng.

• "Not only can we bring this back to Minneapolis, we can carve a path for more Indigenous people to do this work and push to the front line."

Of note: Sherman, Jorge Guzmán of Petite Leon and Yia Vang of Union Hmong Kitchen lost their bids for best Midwestern chef to Dane Baldwin, of The Diplomat in Milwaukee.