SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio — It’s the Oscars of the culinary industry and a top national honor. EDWIN Restaurant and Leadership Institute’s Founder and Chef, Brand Chrostowski, is close to claiming it.
Larder chefs Allie La Valle, Jeremy Umansky and Kenny Scott were 2023 semi-finalists for Best Chef: Great Lakes but did not advance as finalists. However, Chrostowski was named one of five national finalists for the James Beard Award in the Outstanding Restauranteur category, which recognizes a "restaurateur who uses their establishment(s) as a vehicle for building community, demonstrates creativity in entrepreneurship, integrity in restaurant operations, and is making efforts to create a sustainable work culture."
Chrostowski was in Paris, the “motherland of cuisine” as he calls it, leading a group of EDWINS supporters when he got the news.
“The text came in, congrats congrats congrats. I shed one tear and it’s like I gotta keep driving,” Chrostowski said. “This is pretty big. There’s five in the country for this category and to have that recognition is great. The team is proud and again we just keep becoming more and more visible and people see it.”
The established chef says his passion for culinary arts and disciplined mindset was groomed at 17, which happens to be the first time he stepped into a kitchen under the wings of his first mentor.
“I really had that chef put me in my place and say look here man this is what it’s about, here’s the industry and teach me the history and get me to school in New York,” he said. “That was a big switch of my life because he gave me the right side of skills to move forward and do anything.”
Chrostowski says as he began to chase a newfound passion, disturbing calls from home “about people I came up with being murdered, thrown in prison” started coming in, which eventually served as a wake-up call.
"I said there’s something I can do I can build a restaurant that helps others and just like the chef had for me when I had my second chance. So, I said OK, where is the place with the most need? I looked for the city with the worst graduation rates for high school. I looked for distressed environments and Cleveland was actually worse than Detroit and that’s where I’m from. So, I said well, Cleveland is the city that’s where I’ve got to go,” he said. “It turns out to be probably the only city it can work this well in and thrive.”
With more expansions in the works, including a daycare for re-entry parents and a Polish style pop-up restaurant in partnership with the Polish American Cultural Center, Chrostowski says being a James Beard finalist is the cherry on top.
“[If] we get this I mean expect even bigger things to come… we are here to serve men and women coming out of the criminal justice system or even get inside the walls like we do now and if we have an award like that you know what that means we can get into more places, help more people spread the word.”
The 2023 James Beard ceremony will be held in Chicago on June 5.
