Sustainable food wins big for Dan Barber at Beard awards in Chicago

CHICAGO - An almost obsessive dedication to regional and seasonal foods has netted Dan Barber a first-ever culinary hat trick in the nation's top restaurant awards.

The James Beard Foundation on Monday named Barber's Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, New York, the nation's top restaurant, giving him three of the group's highest national chef and restaurant honors in seven years.

Barber, who is at the forefront of a movement to refocus how Americans think about sustainable food and agriculture, also was named the nation's top chef in 2009. And Blue Hill's sister restaurant, Blue Hill in New York City, was honored as the nation's best eatery in 2013.

Monday's win also marks the first time one chef has twice won outstanding restaurant.

Barber has been lauded for his "American seasonal" menus, which favor exceptional ingredients that have been carefully produced and minimally prepared. He opened the original Blue Hill in 2000 in Greenwich Village, then the Stone Barns outpost in 2004. The latter operates at the heart of a working four-season farm and education center dedicated to raising awareness of food sustainability issues.

Blue Hill at Stone Barns, which sources many of its ingredients from its own and nearby fields, offers no menus. Diners instead are served a selection of foods prepared at their peak seasonality.

The awards honor those who follow in the footsteps of James Beard, considered the dean of American cooking when he died in 1985. Monday's ceremony marked the foundation's 25th year of recognizing the food world's top talent. The event, held at Chicago's Lyric Opera, also was the first time it was held outside New York City.