Sacramento sushi chef named a James Beard Award semifinalist among the best in California
Kru Contemporary Japanese Cuisine chef and co-owner Billy Ngo was named a semifinalist Wednesday for the James Beard Award crowning California’s best chef.
Ngo was the only Sacramento-area chef to make the list, joining 18 chefs based in the Bay Area and Los Angeles County along with one from San Diego. The semifinalist announcement wasn’t even on his radar until his cellphone started lighting up Wednesday morning, he said.
“Very, very shocked,” Ngo replied when asked about his reaction. “I was sleeping, then kept hearing a buzz on my phone like a text, then another one and another one, and I was like ‘what’s going on?’”
Born in a Hong Kong refugee camp, Ngo immigrated to the U.S. at 8 months old and grew up in south Sacramento. His friends couldn’t wait to leave the city at the turn of the century when they graduated high school, but Ngo stuck around.
He had been working at a Japanese restaurant called Fuji on Broadway (a new version with the same name opened last month), and continued doing so into his 20s, rising through the ranks from a busboy to a sushi chef. Ngo was a few days shy of his 24th birthday when he founded Kru in midtown Sacramento in 2005, and it was an immediate success.
Dishes such as the warm mushroom salad and sashimi tostadas wowed customers, and Ngo developed a reputation as a culinary wunderkind even before Sacramento’s dining scene really took off. Kru eventually moved to a roomier location at 3135 Folsom Blvd. in East Sacramento, where Ngo can still be found dishing out omakase once a week.
Aside from Kru, Ngo is a partner in downtown Sacramento’s Kodaiko Ramen & Bar and Fish Face Poke Bar, along with Fukuro in Elk Grove’s Sky River Casino. Ngo, former Kodaiko general manager Michael Ng and chef Tyler Bond of Lemon Grass Restaurant will also open a contemporary Chinese/Vietnamese restaurant called Chu Mai, a tribute to Ngo’s late mother, at 1717 S St. this summer.
Often called “the Oscars of the food world,” the James Beard Awards crown the nation’s top chefs, restaurants and cookbooks at a June 10 ceremony in Chicago.
“Just being mentioned is awesome,” Ngo said. “And the James Beards are so cool because it’s voted on by industry peers and professionals. It’s not like a Yelp Elite award or something, you know? I think the Michelin Guide and the James Beard (Awards) are the two highest awards out there.”
Frank Fat’s is the only Sacramento restaurant to have won a James Beard Award, taking home an “America’s Classics Award” in 2013. Binchoyaki chef/co-owner Craig Takehara and Localis’ Chris Barnum-Dann were semifinalists for “Best Chef: California” in 2023 and 2022 respectively, while Paragary’s reached the same round for the nationwide “Outstanding Restaurant” category in 2022.
Get Sacramento's Food & Drink news delivered to your inbox
Sign up here to receive our free weekly Food & Drink newsletter, written by Bee food reporter Benjy Egel. You'll exclusively receive an early look at restaurants, bars, festivals and more.
