“It’s absolutely mind boggling to us,” Taylor says. They are divided evenly across regions, who score restaurants on a wide range of criteria like consistency of food quality, how staff members are treated, and taste, based on repeated site visits. Only a few hundred are selected as semifinalists through a ballot vote by previous award winners. Nominations can be submitted anonymously by anyone. Tens of thousands of restaurants across the United States are nominated each year. Receiving a James Beard Award, called ‘the Oscars of food,’ by some in the industry, is a prestigious recognition. It is one of five restaurants in Massachusetts and the only eatery from the western end of the state to receive the recognition. For the third year in a row, the restaurant made it to the second round of the James Beard Foundation’s annual cuisine excellence competition in the “Best Chef: Northeast” category.
That attention to detail makes Coco and The Cellar Bar, which Abkin and Taylor opened together in 2011, stand out among restaurants in the Pioneer Valley. It takes a lot of tweaking before an idea, of which Abkin is never in short supply, becomes an item on the restaurant’s selective menu. Taylor chews, pauses, and then says, “the flavor is good. “We’re trying to figure out the crispy factor,” prompts Abkin, noting the finalized dish would include broccoli as well. Its sweet sauce, finished with a slight zesty tang, is accented by a satisfying crunch of scallions sprinkled over the crispy chicken. “This is a go then?” Abkin asks Roger Taylor, her husband and business partner, who, sitting at a dining table, samples the entree.
Tantalizing aromas mingle and drift into the room through a window in the small kitchen in the back where cooks prep food for the evening rush. She is in her main dining room at Coco and The Cellar Bar in downtown Easthampton. Chef Unmi Abkin’s eyes light up as she holds a plate with an experimental version of General T’so’s chicken resting in a bed of white rice.
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