Apteka chefs/owners Kate Lasky and Tomasz Skowronski can add a new distinction to their already impressive resumes: James Beard Award finalists.
Although a good number of Pittsburgh chefs have been honored with a spot on the Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic semi-finalist list (including Nik Forsberg of Fet Fisk in 2023) and the long list in other categories, the duo are the city’s first to make the cut for the final five.
“Pittsburgh is special because we can be this really weird project and people are still hyped on it after all these years,” Lasky says. “Everybody and anybody shows up and are part of this experience, and that says something special about this city in that it can be so supportive of something that’s a little different.”
Lasky and Skowronski launched what would become Apteka as a pop-up called Pierogi Night in the early 2010s and opened their standalone restaurant in Bloomfield in 2016. The couple’s vegan menu blends Eastern European culinary traditions and Western Pennsylvania foodways into destination-worthy dining.
“Pierogi Night was an incredible community event, but we were also really young and didn’t have training. When we opened Apteka, we were this scrappy little project. So much of it has been just time to evolve. So we’re always learning and growing,” Lasky says.
Philadelphia chefs Jessie Ito (Royal Sushi), Dionicio Jiménez (Cantina La Martina) and Chutatip “Nok” Suntaranon (Kalaya) and Washington, D.C. chef Michael Rafifi (Albi) are the other finalists in the Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic category.
“We have this amazing group of people who are involved in Apteka now,” Lasky says. “There’s so much support internally to be there and help each other, and that’s been an amazing asset.”
The winner of Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic, as well as all the other James Beard awards, will be announced at a ceremony on June 5 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Hal B. Klein: hklein@post-gazette.com, Twitter @halbklein and IG @halbklein.
First Published: March 29, 2023, 4:27 p.m.
Updated: March 30, 2023, 10:03 a.m.