JuneBaby

Few chefs serve food like Edouardo Jordan, whose Seattle eatery offers up soul-food staples (pulled pork, fried chicken, candied yams) while educating diners about their complex history. JuneBaby’s walls are lined with artwork featuring slaves, and its website includes an “encyclopedia” of menu ingredients that explains, for example, how corn bread became popular among slaves. (It didn’t require a fork and a knife.) “This is the food that fed a lot of people to build America,” says Jordan, a St. Petersburg, Fla., native who last year became the first black chef to win the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant. “We shouldn’t hide that. We should embrace it.” —Ashley Hoffman