Milwaukee’s Dane Baldwin of the Diplomat wins a James Beard Award

Dane Baldwin, the chef-owner of the Diplomat on Milwaukee’s decrease east facet, is the winner of the James Beard Award for greatest chef within the Midwest.

Baldwin gained the award at a ceremony in Chicago on Monday night time that acknowledged cooks and others within the hospitality business from throughout the nation.

The chef first grew to become a semifinalist for the award in 2019 and a finalist this yr, the primary stay awards ceremony of the pandemic.

Baldwin was chosen over two different Milwaukee finalists, Karen Bell of Bavette la Boucherie, 217 N. Broadway, and Gregory León of Amilinda, 315 E. Wisconsin Ave., and three cooks from Minneapolis.

They had been Yia Vang, a former Port Edwards, Wisconsin, resident who now owns Union Kitchen in Minneapolis and has held pop-ups in Milwaukee; Jorge Guzmán, chef-owner of Petite Leon in Minneapolis who labored briefly in La Crosse and has cooked at collaborative dinners in Milwaukee; and Sean Sherman, who opened the indigenous restaurant Owamni in Minneapolis.

Baldwin appeared at a close to loss for phrases on the ceremony on the Lyric Opera. He thanked his spouse, Anna, “who has positively been the pillar behind something I’ve accomplished for the reason that day I met her.”

And, he mentioned, “I need to thank everybody who’s ever taken an opportunity on me.”

Baldwin opened the Diplomat in 2017 at 815 E. Brady St., on the road’s quieter western finish. He refers to his meals as “simply fancy sufficient” — dishes usually rooted in consolation or household meals, however offered in a contemporary means.

He’d beforehand been chef on the Bartolotta group’s Mr. B’s Steakhouse in Brookfield and had labored on the SURG group, the place he picked up his pastry abilities.

The Diplomat was a Journal Sentinel greatest new restaurant in 2017; it was famous that “Baldwin’s historical past ends in a mode that’s his personal.”

And the Diplomat was on the information group’s listing of High 30 eating places in 2018, debuting at No. 4, and 2019, the final yr the listing was printed earlier than the pandemic.

Beforehand, Solly’s Grill of Glendale in February gained the muse’s America’s Classics Award, given to 6 regional eating places with “timeless attraction.” Proprietor Glenn Fieber was at Monday’s awards in Chicago.

Baldwin recounts rising up on the north facet and his path to proudly owning a restaurant

Carol Deptolla has been reviewing eating places in Milwaukee and Wisconsin since 2008. She visits eating places — unannounced — a number of occasions to raised consider meals and repair and normally brings different diners to pattern the menu broadly. Like all Journal Sentinel reporters, she buys all meals, accepts no presents and is impartial of all institutions she covers, working just for our readers. 

Contact her at carol.deptolla@jrn.com or (414) 224-2841, or via the Journal Sentinel Meals & Dwelling web page on Fb. Comply with her on Twitter at @mkediner or Instagram at @mke_diner.