By Robin Moyer Chung

WESTPORT — Yes, chef. It’s true: Brian Lewis, the culinary impresario at two of Westport’s favorite restaurants, has been nominated for a 2025 James Beard Foundation Award, the only chef in the state to be accorded such recognition.

Lewis, who oversees both The Cottage and OKO in Westport, is one of five final Beard nominees for “Best Chef: Northeast” announced earlier this month. In January, when semifinalists for the award were revealed, fellow Westport chef, Michelle Greenfield of Allium Eatery, was also recognized in the same category.

The annual culinary awards are named for James Beard, a pioneering cook and writer who hosted one of television’s earliest cooking shows and is credited for the way Americans eat today. He died in 1985. The awards named in his honor are considered the industry’s highest honor.

Creating cuisine that Westport loves

Lewis has worked in the culinary field for four decades — or three decades, “so it doesn’t count my teen years,” he said.

He is the owner and chef of Full House Hospitality Group, which in addition to The Cottage and OKO in Westport, includes sibling restaurants, The Cottage in Greenwich and OKO in Rye, N.Y.

The Cottage features, according to Lewis, “our most heartfelt local American cuisine,” which has been praised for its sophistication and vision, using local ingredients.

OKO serves dishes that showcase Lewis’s “long-time passion for Japanese cuisine.”

He has previously twice been named a James Beard Award semifinalist, in 2018 and 2022.

From gridiron to kitchen

His journey to cooking was, well, painful. At 14, a knee injury from a football “tackle gone wrong” sent him hobbling to the safer environs of a kitchen.  

He lived near Mona Trattoria, a 3-star hotspot in North Westchester, which was cool enough to make kids want to cook in the ’80s, long before cooks became bad boy TV stars, popular talk show hosts and aspirational fodder for royalty types.

Unable to play sports, yet still bristling with his trademark “high buzz” energy, Lewis summoned the courage to knock on the door of that vaunted eatery and ask chef Tom Elia, himself a former football player, for a job.

Over the next seven years, he worked the gamut of kitchen jobs, from sweeping grated cheese off the floor, to grating cheese, to making the trattoria’s praise-worthy pasta and more. 

In his free time, he consumed cookbooks, from “Joy of Cooking” to those by Alice Waters. “It became my sport,” he said.

In 10th grade, he began applying to the hyper-selective Culinary Institute of America. “It was never for money,” he said, “it was all I wanted to do.”

Senior year, his application made the cut and he was offered a spot at the “world’s premier culinary college.”

Thrilled, his stepfather treated him to “fancy restaurants,” immersing young Lewis in the art and culture of elevated dining.

A recipe for success

After attending Johnson & Wales University, he landed plum apprenticeships with culinary mavens, including Chef Jean Louis Palladin and London-based Marco White London, often skipping town on weekends to work as a “stagiaire,” a culinary trainee who works without pay for the education, in restaurants around France.

Back in the U.S., he criss-crossed the country for 15 years, rising through the culinary ranks before becoming the founding executive chef of Richard Gere’s Bedford Post Inn. 

Here, Lewis caused a stir among foodies and the media, earning an “excellent” review from The New York Times in 2009. The reviewer praised Lewis’s approach as using “excellent ingredients that combine light and rich, sweet and savory so that the sum is greater than any individual taste.”

Features on the “Today” program and Martha Stewart’s show gained him national recognition, but his flaying of Bobby Flay in the aptly named “Beat Bobby Flay” is arguably his coolest achievement. 

So, how does a disciplined and accomplished master chef react to such a prestigious nod?

“A complete spectacle”

Lewis had gone hiking the morning the final Beard Award nominees were announced to deplete energy while the reveal was “burning through my mind.” When notified of his nomination while stopped at a red traffic light, “I started to get out of the car and cheer in the middle of the Post Road,” he laughed.

But aware there are laws prohibiting spontaneous acts of joy in the busy thoroughfare, he hooked a fast left into the parking lot of The Cottage, where his chef and director of operations was anxiously awaiting the news. 

“I couldn’t contain myself,” he recalled, “I was, like, screaming at the top of my lungs.”

People from neighboring businesses flocked to the lot to see what was wrong.

“I didn’t realize what a complete spectacle” his reaction caused, Lewis admitted. But word quickly spread about nomination for what are considered the Oscars of the culinary world.

Worry among spectators turned to delight and cheers erupted. “It was really awesome,” he recalled.

Ten years ago, when his boys, now 11, were babies, he built and opened four outstanding restaurants. “Everything leading up to that was a rehearsal.” 

Though he is reluctant to discuss the often grueling work of a chef and restaurateur, he admits “This career can toughen you up.”

His solace, “Having become a father I see the world through [his sons’] eyes and they warm my heart.”

And “becoming the most compassionate and empathetic leader is the greatest attribute I strive for,” he said.

His mantra? “Firm hand, warm heart.”

Lewis and his sons plan to fly to Chicago to attend the awards ceremony on June 16, a day after Lewis’s birthday. Excited for their father, “My kids say, ‘Dad, can we design our own colored suits?’ ”

What colors will he let them wear? “I’m not doing it. I’m going to take them over to Stephen Kempson, my favorite tailor.”

He’ll also be joined by his mother and stepfather at the ceremony, “My mom and my stepfather will go … they’ve been everything in my life.” 

Because the one thing about chef Brian Lewis, when he receives praise, he gives it away.

Robin Moyer Chung is a freelance writer.