A restaurant that started as a pop-up with communal seating and has grown into a magnet for high-profile culinary awards nabbed another on Monday night.
Serigne Mbaye, chef and co-owner of the Senegalese tasting menu restaurant Dakar NOLA, won the James Beard Foundation award for Best Chef South during an awards gala held in Chicago. It’s the second James Beard award to land at Dakar NOLA, which the group named Best New Restaurant in 2024.
Mbaye’s cuisine tells an interlacing tale of African diaspora influences set in the broader culinary world.
“I’m grateful the food I grew up with at my mother’s table has found a larger table,” Mbaye said while accepting the award along with business partner Effie Richardson.
Chef Serigne Mbaye poses in front of a wall of masks, each with their own story, at Dakar NOLA.
“I have to give everything to the South, especially New Orleans,” he said. “It’s where I finally felt free to be my self and found a community where I belong.”
The Best Chef: South award is a regional honor, covering Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Puerto Rico.
Going into the event, New Orleans had three more finalists in different categories: Donald Link and Stephen Stryjewski of the Link Restaurant Group, nominees for Outstanding Restaurateur; E.J. Lagasse of Emeril’s Restaurant, a nominee for the Emerging Chef award; and Ana Castro of Acamaya, also for Best Chef: South.
Chefs Donald Link and Stephen Stryjewski of the Link Restaurant Group
James Beard awards are always closely watched in the industry and by culinary aficionados. Even a nomination can have a major effect on a restaurant’s popularity, and a chef’s prospects.
The nominees for the awards were whittled down from a list of thousands of chefs, restaurants and bars submitted by the public during an open call last fall.
A chef’s story
Chef Serigne Mbaye prepares a redfish as he cooks for the first time in his kitchen at Dakar NOLA in New Orleans, Friday, Nov. 11, 2022. (Photo by Sophia Germer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
Mbaye was born in New York and spent much of his youth in Senegal, where his parents were born and where he developed his love of cooking. Back in the United States, he graduated from culinary school and embarked on a restaurant career, racking up a remarkable résumé at the high-end of American dining.
He cooked at the Michelin-starred restaurants L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in New York and Atelier Crenn in San Francisco. In New Orleans, he spent time cooking at Commander’s Palace and with chef Melissa Martin at Mosquito Supper Club.
In 2020, chef Serigne Mbaye ran Dakar NOLA as a pop-up to showcase the flavors of Senegal.
Mbaye first created Dakar NOLA as a pop-up, hosting dinners in borrowed spaces. It gained loyal support in New Orleans and gained wide notice beyond. He and Richardson turned this into a tasting menu restaurant in 2022.
The latest award arrives in a new chapter for Dakar NOLA.
The restaurant has a new location, now at 937 Leonides St., in the levee-side address that was previously Mat & Naddie’s Restaurant. It opened in June, with a new approach to its tasting menu. It will also have a patio for more casual a la carte service, which is slated to debut in July.
Media awards
The James Beard media awards, which were doled out Saturday (June 13), included numerous nominees of local interest.
The Lifestyle Visual Media award went to the streaming series “Duck Camp Dinners, The Texas Tour,” hosted by Jean-Paul Bourgeois, a Thibodaux native who has been tapped as chef for the forthcoming restaurant (yet to be named) now taking shape at 741 Nashville St. in Uptown New Orleans.
In addition, a feature on Brigtsen’s Restaurant chef Frank Brigtsen, “Frank: A Love Story,” by writer Michael Oates Palmer for the Bitter Southerner, was a nominee.
