Games foodies play

The James Beard Foundation is out with its full list of award nominees for 2008. And we do mean full - the press release runs 23 pages, which seems a little extreme. All these names will be whittled down to a list of final nominees, which seems darn right silly. Anyway, there are a bunch of locals on the big list, many of them the usual suspects (Joe Miller from Joe's, David Myers from Soma, Suzanne Goin from Lucques and A.O.C.). But the big local story is likely to be Pizzeria Mozza and Osteria Mozza, those absurdly popular restaurants from Nancy Silverton, Mario Batali and Joseph Bastianich. This year, they're likely to be the Coen brothers of the restaurant business. From Eater L.A.:

Suzanne Goin and Lee Hefter are both nominated for Outstanding Chef, Campanile for Outstanding Restaurant, Sona for Outstanding Service, and for Outstanding Wine & Spirits Professional, Albert Trummer at Fraiche, even though he's not really at Fraiche any longer (just "consulting"), and Sang Yoon. Also notable: In the OC, Florent Marneau gets a nod as Best Chef and his Marche Moderne for Best New Restaurant, and James Boyce at Studio for Outstanding Chef. In Vegas, Alessandro Stratta from Alex at the Wynn is nominated for Outstanding Chef.