BARTOLOTTA WINS JAMES BEARD AWARD FOR BEST CHEF SOUTHWEST

Paul Bartolotta has added another James Beard award to his collection of culinary honors.  Bartolotta received the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef Southwest today at Avery Fisher Hall in the Lincoln Center in New York.  Bartolotta, who opened Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare at Wynn Las Vegas four years ago, previously won the 1994 Best Chef, Midwest James Beard Award when he helmed the kitchen of Chicago’s Spiaggia.

Spiaggia also received four-star ratings from both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago magazine.

Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare received a 2006 James Beard nomination for Best New Restaurant.

Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare received the AAA Four Diamond Award in 2007 and 2008. The restaurant was also named one of the Best New Restaurants in America by Esquire magazine in 2005, and received Restaurant and Institutions’ Ivy Award in 2008, which was Chef Bartolotta’s second Ivy Award.

The James Beard Foundation Awards, initiated in 1990, recognize excellence and achievement in the culinary profession. Renowned chefs Cat Cora and Emeril Lagasse with actor Stanley Tucci served as host to the 2009 James Beard Foundation Awards ceremony. This year’s event celebrated “Women in Food.”

--NORM CLARKE, Vegas Confidential