DOVER, NH – Dover restaurant owner and chef Evan Hennessy, winner of the James Beard Foundation Award Best Chef-Northeast, said Monday that the honor also belongs to his team, the community, the town and the farmers and fishermen who do the hard work before he can do his.
Hennesey is the first New Hampshire winner of a James Beard Foundation Chef and Restaurant Award. The awards have been presented for 48 years, and are considered the most prestigious in the restaurant industry.
Hennessey was one of two 2026 New Hampshire semifinalists for Beard awards. The winners were announced Monday after they were presented at the Lyric Theater in Chicago.
Hennesey is chef at Stages, 1 Washington St., Dover, which he owns with his brother, Jared Hennessey. He was one of 20 semifinalists in the Best Chef-Northeast category [the Best Chef category is split into 12 regional subcategories.]
The award recognizes “exceptional culinary talent, innovation, and leadership in the food and beverage industry” and honors chefs who “display outstanding skills, high standards in their craft, and a demonstrated commitment to sustainability, community impact, and equity,” according to the James Beard Foundation.
Stages, which opened in 2012, uses products from local farms and fisherman, and locally foraged ingredients, for “a progressive New England cuisine.”
“We take this home, back to Dover, we celebrate it with the team, with the community, with the town,” Hennessey said Monday after the ceremony. “We respect each other so much. We rely on each other so, so much. And this solidifies all that hard work that we’ve done. How much we believe in our community, believe in our farms, believe in our fishermen, and believe in each other.
In the roller-coaster world chefs live in, it’s important to “surround yourself with great people that will treat you right, show you right, and push you…into your path. Not their path, but your path,” he said in the interview video by Getty for the James Beard Foundation.
In an Instagram post Tuesday, Hennessey said, “This isn’t just something that happened overnight, this is years and years of choices, trying, crying, believing, and creating a life that I was proud of and that I knew I was in the right place. This is years of growing a dream that constantly evolved, and I’m still dreaming, and it’s still evolving.”
He added, “This isn’t a single person effort either. This is many, many people over the course of many years. This is consistent effort. This is not giving up. This is taking the hard road and trudging through every step. This is proof of “I never thought I couldn’t.’
“Like I said in my speech: ‘If your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough.’”
In his speech accepting the award, Hennessey, also said that it represents all the small businesses and small towns, the farmers, fishing industry, foragers and others who do the work before the chefs can do theirs.
Hennesey was also a 2014 James Beard semifinalist and a three-time champion on the Food Network show “Chopped,”
Kristina Zontini, owner of Super Secret Ice Cream, in Bethlehem, was a semifinalist for the third straight year, this year in the Outstanding Bakery category, which recognizes “bakers of bread, pastries, or desserts that demonstrate consistent excellence in food, atmosphere, hospitality, and operations.” This year’s winner was Wild Crumbs, in Bozeman, Montana.
Super Secret was a semifinalist in the same category the previous year, and the year before that, Zontini was semifinalist in the Outstanding Baker category.
There were two other New England winners.
Outstanding Restaurateur Award went to Dana Street, who owns four Portland, Maine, restaurants: Street and Co., Fore Street, Scales and Standard Bakery.
Loma, of Providence, Rhode Island, which was named Best New Bar.
While Hennessey is the first James Beard Foundation Restaurant and Chef Award winner from New Hampshire, in 2020 the Puritan Backroom restaurant in Hooksett was one of six American Classics Award winners. Announced in the week preceding the restaurant and chef awards ceremony, American Classic Awards recognize “regional establishments, often family-owned, that are cherished for their quality food, local character, and lasting appeal.”