The Frank Stitt Award
For Industry Excellence2026 RECIPIENT
CHEF ANNE QUATRANO
Southbound Food Festival is thrilled to announce Chef Anne Quatrano as the recipient of the 2026 Frank Stitt Award for Industry Excellence. Southbound started this prestigious award to honor individuals making a significant positive impact on their local community as well as the culinary industry at large. This year’s recipient was selected for her visionary leadership in defining modern Southern cuisine through a decades-long commitment to seasonality, sustainability, and community.
About Anne
Anne Quatrano has helped steer the trajectory of Atlanta’s dining scene for more than three decades by pioneering a simple principle—she was one of the city’s first chefs to showcase local ingredients prepared with precision and presented artfully. At the core of all her restaurants lies a commitment to the land and the inherent flavors locally and lovingly cultivated produce and products bestow.
Much of what she serves at her restaurants comes directly from her own Summerland Farm in Cartersville, and she steadfastly supports wholesome wave, local organic growers and Georgia Organics.
Quatrano is a graduate of the University of Vermont and San Francisco’s California Culinary Academy and her career has taken her through fine dining establishments from the Bay Area to New York City before she relocated to Atlanta. She has won numerous James Beard nominations and awards, including “Best Chef Southeast” in 2003. In 2013 and 2014, Quatrano was nominated for the James Beard “Outstanding Chef Award,” and in 2013 Bacchanalia was nominated for “Outstanding Service Award.” In 2023, 2024 and 2025, Bacchanalia received recognition from the MICHELIN Guide – becoming one of Atlanta’s first one-starred and Green-starred restaurants.
Outside of her restaurants and farm, Quatrano is very involved in culinary nonprofits, especially those focused on women chefs. She has served as the Director on the Board for the James Beard Foundation and Chairman of the JBF Awards Committee, and has served on the Board of Directors for both Women Chefs and Restaurateurs and Georgia Organics. She is active on various committees for the James Beard Foundation,Southern Foodways Alliance and Southern Restaurants for Racial Justice.
Quatrano’s cookbook, Summerland: Recipes for Celebrating with Southern Hospitality, was published by Rizzoli in October 2013, and showcases the inspiration and philosophy behind Quatrano and Harrison’s creative processes and their true passion for the kitchen.
About the Award
The Frank Stitt Award for Industry Excellence honors those making a positive impact on their local community and the culinary industry. The inaugural honoree and the award’s namesake, Chef Frank Stitt, often references an “integrated food system," referring to the other crucial components of the culinary industry upon which restaurants rely - farmers and producers, servers and sellers, mixologists and makers. It’s all these components that truly make a culinary community work, special, and unique while turning food and the places we eat into an economic engine for a region.
Each year, The Frank Stitt Award for Industry Excellence will shine a spotlight on a member of this larger, inclusive community: someone who is dedicated to craft, excelling at what they do, and fostering balance and appreciation for how food gets to our tables, on our plate, and the impact it can and does have on an entire community and region.
This award is named to honor a champion of local communities and local, farm-to-table food everywhere. A man who, throughout his career, has been dedicated to the foodways of Alabama and the American South.
Southbound Food Festival is excited to partner with Mr. Stitt and his family to present the Frank Stitt Award for Industry Excellence annually to one excelling at what they do today or an up-and-comer to serve as encouragement for taking a leap, innovating, and positively impacting the culinary industry for the future.
Past Recipients
BETH & BILL WALTON
Oyster South, Virginia Institute of Marine Science
2025 Recipients
Glenn Roberts
Anson Mills
2024 Recipient
Frank Stitt
Stitt Restaurant Group
2023 Recipient