The 2025 Winners of the Jean Banchets, Chicago's Local Food Awards

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The Jean Banchet Awards for Culinary Excellence honor Chicago’s food and beverage industry, but if you take all the ceremony presenters and winners at their word, the awards may as well honor the best in the country. Chicago and its food scene were spoken of only in superlatives.

In a ceremony that featured cameos from various icons, from the “tamale guy” Claudio Velez to Kasama’s Genie Kwon and Tim Flores to “breakfast queen” Ina Pinkney, chef Roland Liccioni was singularly celebrated with the Culinary Excellence of the Year Award. Born in Vietnam, trained in France, and with a career built in Chicago, Liccioni took over Le Francais from Jean Banchet himself, ran Les Nomades for years, and worked at other acclaimed restaurants in almost 50 years of cooking before quietly retiring last year.

“If you have a passion for what you do, just keep doing it,” was his succinct advice to all the other chefs and professionals in the room, who ranged from industry stalwarts to up-and-comers, native Chicagoans to immigrants who moved here from other countries barely speaking English to fall in love with the hospitality industry in this city. Here are the winners of the 2025 Banchet Awards. (You can see the nominees here.)

Rising Chef of the Year

Chris Jung, Maxwells Trading - Maxwells Trading only opened this year but has already become a media darling thanks to Jung and Erling Wu-Bower's mining of the food they encountered growing up in American cities for a personal take on "American" food, with clever combinations of Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Cajun, and more cuisines. Jung and Wu-Bower are also semifinalists for Best Chef: Great Lakes in this year's James Beard Awards. Wu-Bower recently spoke about the restaurant and shared a recipe with us before its Lunar New Year celebration. 

Best New Restaurant

Cariño - This Uptown tasting menu restaurant from chef and owner Norman Fenton features both a Mexican-inspired prix fixe option and a late-night taco "omakase." It's also a semifinalist for Best New Restaurant in this year's James Beard Awards. 

Neighborhood Restaurant of the Year

Le Bouchon - This French bistro has been delighting Bucktown residents and industry folk for ages. It was taken over by its original owners' sons, who have now built their own acclaimed restaurant empire, with Obélix and Mariscos San Pedro.

Sommelier of the Year

Jelena Prodan of S.K.Y., Valhalla, Apolonia - Prodan immigrated to the United States eight years ago not intending to stay, as she noted in her acceptance speech; now, she's celebrated as the sommelier at a trio of restaurants run by Chef Stephen Gillanders, matching beverages to his creative and ambitious dishes. It's the second Banchet win in a row for the group: pastry chef Tatum Sinclair was honored last year.

Best Counter Service

Ragadan - Danny Sweis and his wife run this diner-ish Middle Eastern spot in Uptown, which serves both burgers and falafel sandwiches, in a reflection of his Jordanian parents and their Oklahoma diner. 

Best Hospitality

Dear Margaret - Dear Margaret celebrates seasonal produce through a French Canadian approach. Befitting a hospitality award, the restaurant's entire staff was on hand to accept it – even a paper cut-out of someone who was absent.

Best Pizza

Spacca Napoli Pizzeria - This side-street Neapolitan-style pizzeria has been around for almost twenty years and is the first winner in this new category, which was voted upon by the audience at the awards ceremony – a discerning crowd, given it mostly consisted of people within the industry. 

Bar of the Year

Bisous - While Bisous is new, it has already won plenty of admirers for its retro vibes and French inspiration, from Esquire to the James Beard Awards. 

Best Heritage Restaurant

Stumara - Georgian food is still rare in this country, but Stumara celebrates it in the northwestern suburb of Wheeling. Its husband-and-wife owners immigrated to the United States four years ago, and now want to expand Stumara to downtown Chicago, as they announced after winning the award.

Best Restaurant Design

Tre Dita - It's hard to beat a location on the Chicago River inside Jeanne Gang's St. Regis tower. Lettuce Entertain You's Tuscan restaurant was designed by David Collins Studio.

Pastry Chef of the Year

TC Lumbar of Elske - This Scandinavian-inspired fine dining West Loop restaurant was also up for Restaurant of the Year, but it's the pastries and desserts of TC Lumbar that won a Banchet.

Chef of the Year

Otto Phan of Kyōten - Otto Phan moved to Chicago from Texas to open Kyōten, an omakase spot serving very high-end sushi in Logan Square, and now counts among Chicago's culinary scene boosters, as he revealed in his acceptance speech.

Restaurant of the Year

Avec - One of the flagships of the venerable One Off Hospitality group, this Mediterranean restaurant was a pioneer in the West Loop and continues to be a favorite of Chicagoans in its third decade. Given a restaurant with such a tenure, its partners read off lists of chefs and other staffers who have maintained its excellence over the years. "It's important to stick together and make sure your teams are safe," Donnie Madia said in explanation.