Marzia Coppa had an unusual reaction when her boss, the chef and owner of Dolce restaurant in Omaha, was named a semifinalist for a James Beard Award last year. The server said she was going to make sure that Anthony Kueper never won the medal, even if it meant submitting a report to the organization's ethics committee.
Since the James Beard Awards began in 1991, chefs have questioned their fairness and the foundation’s transparency and integrity. A scandal in 2004, in which the organization’s longtime president was convicted of embezzlement and the trustees resigned en masse, did not help matters.
The group behind “the Oscars of the food world” created a new process to weed out nominees with problematic pasts. But that process has troubles of its own.