This NC restaurant is home to one of the nation’s best new chefs, rankings show
A North Carolina restaurant is home to one of the nation’s best new chefs, rankings show.
Silver Iocovozzi, creator of Neng Jr.’s restaurant in Asheville, is accustomed to receiving wide praise. Now, he’s also a winner of the “Best New Chefs in America Award” from Food & Wine magazine.
“This year’s 13 Best New Chefs — the largest class yet — represent the future of cooking in America,” the magazine wrote in a news release. “They are leaders at the stove, creating food that is innovative, disruptive, highly personal, and delicious — and also leaders in the kitchen, creating more sustainable and welcoming workplaces for their teams.”
To create the Sept. 10 list, Food & Wine considered people who have been in charge of U.S. restaurants for no more than five years. The magazine said it also scoped out eateries and received “nominations from Best New Chef alums, food writers, cookbook authors, and other trusted experts around the country.”
What makes the NC chef’s restaurant special?
Iocovozzi created Neng Jr.’s, which started serving food in the North Carolina mountains in July 2022. The Asheville restaurant on its website said it brings Filipinx traditions to a “former arcade room turned intimate dining room.”
Food & Wine said the space “radiates unabashed, colorful, queer joy. From the open kitchen with gleaming emerald green–tiled walls to the brilliant red countertop to the massive, glamorous painting of his mom, the vibrant 18-seat restaurant offers what Iocovozzi describes as ‘the intimacy and the comforts of home.’”
The restaurant is known for offering dishes with Filipino and Southern touches.
“In what Iocovozzi thinks of as a ‘handshake between the two cuisines,’ a Filipino banana ketchup might get a little frisky with a Carolina barbecue sauce,” the magazine wrote. “Or a locally sourced duck breast might be coupled with a silky-smooth adobo-inspired sauce that you can’t help but spoon over everything in sight.”
The award adds to accolades for Iocovozzi and Neng Jr.’s, which together received three nods within the same week in 2023. Those came months after the prestigious James Beard Foundation named the business a best new restaurant finalist, McClatchy News reported.
In the most recent Food & Wine rankings, none of the other chefs have a North Carolina restaurant. The winners weren’t listed in ranking order, a spokesperson told McClatchy News via email.
