Kudos to Indo’s Nick Bognar who is counted among this year’s “Food & Wine” Best New Chefs, an honor he shares with only nine other chefs in the nation.
Remarking on Bognar and his fellow honorees, Hunter Lewis, “Food & Wine’s” editor-in-chief, said, “We’re honored to celebrate these amazing people and their singular talents and accomplishments with our readers. With the world in crisis and the food and beverage industry especially hard hit right now, this class of Best New Chefs inspires optimism and hope for the future of restaurants. I can’t wait to dine at their tables again and toast all 10 of them in person.”
Bognar grew up working at his mother’s restaurants, Nippon Tei and Ramen Tei, before attending culinary school. He went on to work at Austin’s acclaimed Uchiko and serve as executive sushi chef at Cincinnati’s E+O Kitchen before returning home to St. Louis to reinvigorate the menu at Nippon Tei. He opened Indo, the modern Asian restaurant with Japanese, Thai and Southeast Asian cuisine in June of 2019, and was nominated by the James Beard Foundation as Rising Star Chef of the Year twice. Indo was nominated for Best New Restaurant in 2020. This exciting news comes on the heels of Indo’s inclusion in “GQ’s” Best Restaurants of 2020.
