Mark your calendars! The clock has started on the 2027 James Beard Awards. The James Beard Foundation opened its entry and recommendation period on September 30, and it runs through Monday, November 30 at 11:59 p.m. ET. If you - yes, you! - know a chef, restaurant, bar, or food media voice who deserves a nod, now's the time to put them forward.This cycle comes with real changes, not just a new application window. On the Media side, two new short-form categories: Cooking and Instructional (Short-Form) and Food Culture (Short-Form) and now recognize the creators doing the real work on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, a shift that reflects just how much food storytelling has moved off the page and onto a phone screen. A handful of Book and Journalism categories got retired or renamed to match where the industry actually is today, including Home Cooking becoming Instructional Cooking and Narrative Photography broadening into simply Photography.On the Restaurant and Chef side, the headline change is to America's Classics, which now welcomes bars alongside restaurants and stretches its eligibility window from 10 years to 15. Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker has also been split into two distinct awards: Outstanding Pastry Chef and Outstanding Baker or Dessert Professional now giving each discipline its own lane instead of lumping them together.The Impact Awards, now in their second year, will focus on five areas this cycle: operational excellence, immigration advocacy, climate solutions, resilient farms and supply chains, and equity and mental health.A few numbers worth knowing if you're on the fence about entering: 96% of 2025 semifinalists, nominees, and winners reported a generally positive business impact from their recognition, and 88% of Media Award respondents said it boosted their standing in the industry. Recognition for the Restaurant and Chef and Impact Awards is free to submit; Media Award entries carry an $85 fee, with waivers available for anyone who needs one.The 2027 Awards weekend returns to Chicago, June 12–14 — Media Awards first, then the Impact Awards luncheon, closing with the Restaurant and Chef Awards ceremony.If you've got a candidate in mind, don't sit on it. Entries and recommendations close November 30. Visit here.

Nycci has 24 years of industry tea, and she's spilling it here.

Nycci Nellis of TheListAreYouOnIt.com joined WTOP to highlight some of the DMV’s biggest summer restaurant openings. New arrivals include The Oak Room and Bernadette’s in Georgetown, the return of The Riggsby in Dupont Circle, Caribbean rooftop concept Croix in Navy Yard, and Agora and Call Your Mother in Bethesda. Other openings include Little Birdie, Duke’s Burgers, Slice & Pie, La Merna, Wheelhouse, and The Grace, with Ellizabetta and cocktail bar The Bit continuing the wave of new dining destinations into fall.

Ereka Vetrini has four million people asking her what’s for dinner, and before any of that she was an operational auditor at Estee Lauder, a contestant on the first season of The Apprentice, and a host on NBC, TLC and HGTV. Then she walked away from all of it. What pulled her back was a dare from her daughter and one video that got three million views in three days.This is the kind of conversation that only happens when two people who have been in food and media a long time stop performing and just talk. Nycci Nellis sits down with Ereka Vetrini, the first generation Italian American recipe creator behind the gnocchi video that changed her career, and they get into the parts of the job nobody posts about. Ereka grew up inside her parents’ pizzeria in Westchester, learning to cook by tasting, by watching, and by getting yelled at, with a mother from a farm town outside Naples where lard hung from the ceiling because olive oil was not a given. She takes Nycci through the business path that came first, Boston College, GE, Estee Lauder, then the audition she almost did not do and the non-compete that nearly ended her television run before it started. She explains why she left hosting, why she says no to the word influencer, why she is putting money into a blog instead of Substack, and what it actually takes to make five recipes a week that work in a real kitchen. For anyone tracking the DC food scene or the hospitality industry more broadly, this one is about building something that outlasts an algorithm. Listen to the episode here, or watch it here.