For Chef Jake Potashnick, Recognition Leads to Creative Freedom
Quick Answers
- Jake Potashnick, chef and owner of Feld, a 20-seat restaurant in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood, won the 2026 James Beard Award® for Best Chef: Great Lakes.
- Potashnick participated in the James Beard Awards® Open Call, writing his impact statement on Feld’s commitment to sustainability, collaborative kitchen culture, and employee benefits, including health insurance and three-day weekends.
- For Potashnick, recognition means greater creative freedom, giving him and his team room to experiment, explore new ideas, and continue building on what they’re started at Feld.
The James Beard Awards® Open Call is accepting nominations through November 30. As part of Resy’s ongoing exploration of the Awards process, we spoke with 2026 Best Chef: Great Lakes winner Jake Potashnick about his journey, his love for the business, and what recognition means to him.
It’s Jake Potashnick’s day off, but he’s at the restaurant cooking down 40 gallons of cider to put in a bourbon barrel he procured in Kentucky two weeks prior, to make an apple cider syrup to serve to guests sometime next year.
As we speak, Potashnick tends to the cider. After our interview, he has a call with the Feld team, where everyone is invited to pitch ideas, some of which will eventually find their way onto the menu. These recurring meetings have been central to the culture at Feld, his 20-seat restaurant in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood, since it opened in June 2024.
For Potashnick, creativity and collaboration aren’t just ideals. They’re part of the daily work of running a restaurant.
Potashnick, who is a Chicago native, has always loved cooking, working with seasonal produce, and building relationships. Those passions helped shape his vision for Feld. What he didn’t anticipate was how much he’d enjoy the business of running a restaurant, too.
“Having to sit down and look at the numbers, I was surprised by how much I enjoy it. I enjoy the office work aspects of being an owner. And I find pleasure in being able to tell people that I know where every dollar in Feld goes.”
Another surprise? Winning the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Great Lakes earlier this year.
“I was up against very talented people. I mean, here in Chicago and in Cincinnati and in Cleveland—it sounds like faux humble—but it’s really not. To say I was shocked is an understatement.”
Potashnick participated in the James Beard Awards® Open Call, submitting nominations for himself, Feld, and members of his team. When it came to crafting his impact statement, a component of the nomination process, he believes being candid about his larger vision for Feld may have helped him to stand out.
“I wrote about how I opened Feld with the intention of sustainability—not just cooking. But staffing, three-day weekends for the team, health insurance. The goal of Feld, along with the relationship-to-table mindset, is not just how we work with our farmers and get the produce to the table. It’s how we relate with the tables who are at the restaurant.”
For Potashnick, recognition is meaningful, but it’s not the end goal. Instead, he sees accolades as something that can give restaurants the freedom to pursue their creative vision without compromise.
“We have not had to settle creatively to get business,” he says. “That’s one of the beautiful things about recognition—it allows for the creative freedom to not just flow but grow.”
At one point during our conversation, I ask Potashnick what’s next. He asks me to hang on—the cider is about to boil over.
As it turns out, expansion isn’t top of mind. Feld is still a young restaurant, and Potashnick is content to focus on what he’s already building.
“This is what I want to be doing on my days off,” he says. “This is my full focus, and I love this place and this team and I’m just very happy and content in what I’m doing right now and want to stay focused on making it as good as it can be.”
