Millions of people around the world tuned in or logged on to see South Mississippi native Lucas McKinney named to the prestigious Food & Wine’s 2026 Best New Chefs for bringing a taste of Biloxi to his midtown Houston restaurant.
Born in Biloxi and raised in Ocean Springs, the young executive chef named his restaurant Josephine’s Gulf Coast Tradition in honor of his great-grandmother Althea Josephine Nicovich. He created a menu that features gumbo, oysters farmed in the waters off South Mississippi and peanut butter pie made with Barq’s root beer that was created and first bottled in Biloxi.
McKinney, 32, had to keep the secret for nine months that he was one of 14 chefs at 10 U.S. restaurants to make the Best New Chefs list. The world didn’t find out until Sept. 15, in a full production at the private members-only ZZ’s Club in Manhattan, with 80 alumni of the award attending.
It was a life-changing experience — “Just hard to put in words how special a moment it was,” he said.
Actually it was a series of special moments in New York City.
Two days earlier he was engaged to his fiancé at Central Park. While the world was learning the identities of the best new chefs, he and the other winners were sequestered in a mentor’s class, where previous winners shared with them how to navigate this next part of their career and what it looks like, McKinney said.
Now it’s their turn to shine.
“These visionary chefs are ready for a much larger stage than within the four walls of their restaurants,” said Erika Adama, Food & Wine’s restaurant editor.
She gave a shout-out to McKinney, saying she hopes getting to know these chefs will inspire foodies to book a reservation and also to try the winning chefs’ recipes in their own kitchen. “I’ll be starting with the peanut pie from Lucas McKinney’s restaurant, Josephine’s,” she said.
Barq’s peanut pie with root beer caramel got the attention of the editor of Food & Wine, which named Lucas McKinney to the class of 2026 Best New Chefs. He grew up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where Barq’s root beer was created and first bottled. Quit Nguyen Scurfield Group Taste of the Gulf
Teams from Food & Wine fan out across the country a year ahead of the determination of winners, scouting restaurants and searching for chefs who have been in business for five years or less and who they believe will make a difference in the restaurant industry.
The judges found McKinney, and learned of his unlikely path to the kitchen when he went to Ole Miss to study chemistry. Instead, he took his love of Coast fishing and seafood, learned from award-winning chefs in Oxford and Houston and created his own brand of Gulf Coast cooking for his customers at Josephine’s.
Josephine’s Gulf Coast Tradition restaurant in Houston gives customers seafood boil and other Gulf Coast favorites. Executive Chef Lucas McKinney grew up fishing in Ocean Springs and started cooking while he was a student at Ole Miss. Quit Nguyen Scurfield Group
“I didn’t grow up in New Orleans, and I didn’t grow Cajun or Creole,” he said. “I grew up Gulf Coast, and that’s something we’ve stood on for a long time.”
Those South Mississippi roots are displayed in photos of the Biloxi Lighthouse and other South Mississippi places that hang on the wall of the restaurant. He sources food from his hometown and other areas of the Gulf, gives them his own spin and plates them for his customers in Houston.
Josephine’s Gulf Coast Tradition restaurant in Houston gives customers seafood boil and other Gulf Coast favorites. Executive Chef Lucas McKinney grew up fishing in Ocean Springs and started cooking while he was a student at Ole Miss. Quit Nguyen Scurfield Group
Holy Ground oysters come from Ocean Springs, where they taste like Biloxi and Deer Island where they are harvested, he said. The owner of the oyster farm has become his friend. “I get to go hang out with him when I’m home and see the farm,” he said.
Also on his menu are smoked redfish dip, one of his signature dishes, along with Viet-Cajun Crawfish that’s a nod to the Vietnamese fisherman who settled in Biloxi and along the Gulf. Grilled redfish and snapper collars get a kick with Jamaican jerk rub and chili butter and their shrimp po-boys are served on Leidenheimer bread from New Orleans. Homemade biscuits, red beans and rice and collard greens encourage customers to celebrate the flavors of the South.
Award spurs more creativity
Josephine’s just celebrated three years in business and McKinney said winning the Food & Wine award “lights a fire back in you.”
Being part of this year’s class of chefs for an award given out since 1988 is not necessarily about changing what we do, he said, but keep pushing, support the purveyors and encouraging the cooks to be better so the customers have a great experience.
Chef Lucas McKinney lands a big catch off the coast of Biloxi. After fishing the waters of South Mississippi, he went on to work with top chefs in Oxford and then Houston, before opening his own restaurant, Josephine’s Gulf Coast Tradition in Houston. He was named to Food & Wine’s Top 10 New Chefs for 2026. Courtesy of Scurfield Group
“Generations of McKinney’s family earned their living catching shrimp, tonging oysters and working in canning factories,” his Food & Wine profile says. They’ve all gotten out of the industry, while much of what he still does at his restaurant is focus on the cultures of harvesting from the Gulf and supporting families still fishing and growing, he said.
“It’s a very fragile industry that I don’t want to ever see disappear,” he said.
Mary has won numerous awards for her business and casino articles for the Sun Herald. She also writes about Biloxi, jobs and the new restaurants and development coming to the Coast. She is a fourth-generation journalist.
Dining and Cooking