Today, the James Beard Foundation announced its Restaurant and Chef Awards semifinalists for 2019. And this year, the list promises to be more diverse than years prior. Back in October, the James Beard Foundation changed its policies to ensure a more diverse group of decision makers and award winners. For the first time, the makeup of its awards committees would mirror the demographics of the U.S. census. To that end, there are new committee members on the expanded list of 19: food writers Khushbu Shah, Joseph Hernandez, and Adrian Miller. The foundation also asked these committee members to increase the diversity of the awards judges, a group that includes the committee members and industry experts, as well as hundreds of previous James Beard Award winners and regional panelists.