Hors d’Oeuvre reception in the lobby of the
Equitable Center | 787 Seventh Ave at 51st St., NYC

Dinner to follow at
Le Bernardin | 155 W. 51st St., NYC

Sunday, May 2, 6:00 pm
Members $275, guests $350

For reservations or more information, please call 212.627.2308.

Please note special time and location.

“This rich land of ours is richer still because of the living things that swim or crawl in its waters,” James Beard wrote in the foreword to his 1954 classic, James Beard’s New Fish Cookery. “All my life I have been fond of fish and I have been fortunate in having lived where fish were plentiful.” They were certainly plentiful in Portland, Oregon, where Beard was born in 1903. It was likely his fondness for and familiarity with seafood that compelled him to write a book to “encourage Americans to eat more fish and to help them enjoy it more through the expedient of cooking it well.”

Chef Eric Ripert has also done his part to encourage Americans to eat more fish and to demonstrate how to cook it well. Simply put, at Le Bernardin, which he co-owns with Maguy Le Coze, Ripert prepares some of the most exquisite fish in the world. That’s one of the reasons he was awarded our James Beard Foundation Outstanding Chef Award last year—only the latest in a string of Foundation accolades that has included our 1999 Outstanding Service Award, our 1998 Outstanding Restaurant Award, and the 1998 Best Chef: New York Award for Ripert.

A native of France, Ripert worked at the venerable La Tour d’Argent and the legendary Jamin, under Joël Robuchon, before moving to the United States to work for Jean-Louis Palladin at The Watergate Hotel. A brief stint at Bouley with David Bouley brought him to New York, where he joined Gilbert LeCoze in the kitchen of Le Bernardin. Upon Le Coze’s untimely death, Ripert assumed the helm. In 1997 GQ restaurant critic Alan Richman pronounced Le Bernardin “the best restaurant in America.” Nothing less would be suitable for a celebration of Beard’s birthday; the man was, after all, “the dean of American cookery.”

In the pantheon of American legends, Jack Daniel certainly holds a place. In a recent article in The New York Times, R. W. Apple Jr. called it “the nation’s—and soon, perhaps, the world’s—best-selling whiskey.” He praised its “sooty, sweet, faintly peppery taste” and “caramel flavors.” The 138-year-old Jack Daniel Distillery has been a generous supporter of the James Beard Foundation and the annual birthday dinner since 1991. And by now it wouldn’t be a birthday party without a remark from Jack Daniel’s great-grandniece, Lynne Tolley, who will raise a glass of Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Tennessee Whiskey to honor our muse.

Never short on words, Beard advised in 1956, “Champagne adapts to any occasion…sip it slowly and savor every drop.” It also adapts well to any food. That’s why we are delighted to be pairing Ripert’s menu with an all-Champagne selection from Perrier Jouët, including its prized 1996 Fleur de Champagne, served in magnums with an Emile Gallé–inspired design.

This year we welcome a new birthday dinner sponsor, Smithfield Foods, the largest processor of pork in the world. Beard was certainly gifted, like Ripert, in the preparation of fish and seafood, but pork always held a special place in his heart. In Beard on Food he declared, “I love every part of the pig, from the ears to the feet.”

We’ll close this celebration with a delectable chocolate dessert that we know would have tickled Beard’s sweet tooth. Birthdays are made for celebrating, and this is the best way we know how.