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Nation’s Restaurant News announces 2024 MenuMasters winners

The winners will be fêted at a celebration in Chicago May 18

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

March 7, 2024

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Nancy Silverton is being inducted into the MenuMasters Hall of Fame as part of a slate of winners who have been honored for their culinary innovation in foodservice.

That includes Meherwan Irani of the Chai Pani Restaurant Group in Asheville, N.C., who is this year’s Innovator, and Samuel “Sam the Cooking Guy” Zien, based in San Diego, who is being awarded as Digital Innovator.

Additionally, CAVA has won the award for Best New Item with its Market Spice Bowl, Del Taco’s Birria Ramen has been named Best Limited-Time-Offer, and McDonald’s monumental reworking of how it cooks its burgers is being honored with Best Menu Revamp.

The award for Best Line Extension goes to Fogo de Chão for its crispy pork belly, and Tender Greens’ Blue Zone Bowl is being recognized for Healthful Innovation.

Presented by Nation’s Restaurant News and sponsored by Ventura Foods, the MenuMasters awards honor outstanding foodservice research and development. Winners have made innovations or created menu items that NRN’s editors have judged to have a significant impact on the industry.

The winners will be honored at a celebration on May 18 at a new location, at Morgan MFG in Chicago’s West Loop, where guests will be treated by a special menu developed by the award-winning chefs.

Related:Meherwan Irani named MenuMasters Innovator

Learn more about the event at MenuMasters.com.

Read on to learn more about this year’s honorees.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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