UPDATE: Here are all the winners:

Best New Restaurant

Next, Chicago

Outstanding Chef

Daniel Humm of Eleven Madison Park in New York

Outstanding Pastry Chef

Mindy Segal of Mindy's Hot Chocolate in Chicago

Outstanding Restaurant

Boulevard in San Francisco

Outstanding Restaurateur

Tom Douglas of Tom Douglas Restaurants in Seattle

Outstanding Service

La Grenouille in New York

Outstanding Wine & Spirits Professional

Paul Grieco of Terroir in New York

Outstanding Wine Program

No. 9 Park in Boston

Outstanding Bar Program

PDT in New York

Rising Star Chef Of The Year

Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milk Bar in New York

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REGIONAL CHEF AWARDS

Great Lakes

Bruce Sherman of North Pond in Chicago

Mid-Atlantic

Maricel Presilla of Cucharamama in Hoboken, N.J.

Midwest

Tory Miller of L'Etoile in Madison, Wisc.

New York City

Michael Anthony of Gramercy Tavern in New York

Northeast

Tim Cushman of O Ya in Boston

Northwest

Matt Dillon of Sitka & Spruce in Seattle

Pacific

Matt Molina of Osteria Mozza in Los Angeles

South

Chris Hastings of Hot and Hot Fish Club in Birmingham, Ala.

Southeast (tie)

Hugh Acheson of Five and Ten in Athens, Ga. & Linton Hopkins of Restaurant Eugene in Atlanta

Southwest

Paul Qui of Uchiko in Austin, Texas

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James Beard Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award

Wolfgang Puck

James Beard Foundation Humanitarian of the Year

Charlie Trotter

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James Beard Foundation Who's Who of Food & Beverage in America Inductees

- Grant Achatz, chef and author, Chicago

- Mark Bittman, journalist and author, New York

- Dana Cowin, editor-in-chief at Food and Wine magazine, New York

- Emily Luchetti, pastry chef and author, San Francisco

- Marvin Shanken, publisher, New York

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James Beard Foundation America's Classics

- The Fry Bread House in Phoenix

Owner: Cecelia Miller

- Nora's Fish Creek Inn in Wilson, Wyo.

Owners: Nora Tygum, Trace Tygum and Kathryn Tygum Taylor

- St. Elmo Steak House in Indianapolis

Owners: Stephen Huse and Craig Huse

- Jones Bar-B-Q Diner in Marianna, Ark.

Owners: James and Betty Jones

- Shady Glen in Manchester, Conn.

Owners: William and Annette Hoch

PREVIOUSLY:

The annual James Beard Awards, happening Monday night at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York, are one of the biggest events in the food world. Little else brings together as many chefs from across the country. Alton Brown, the co-host of this year's awards, actually lit the Empire State Building in honor of the festivities.

Monday night's James Beard Awards will honor established and rising chefs from across the country, outstanding wine programs, restaurateurs, individual restaurants and more (see the full list of 2012 nominees). On Friday night, the nominees for the broadcast, book and journalism awards gathered for a separate awards ceremony. Check out the winners for those honors here.

Like any major award show, the James Beard Awards are not without its detractors (see here and here), but the medal still remains one of the few recognized -- and coveted -- accolades granted to chefs and other food professionals across America.

HuffPost Food is on hand at the awards to fill you in on the evening's winners, attendees and festivities. If you want to follow along, check out the liveblog below, watch the awards live if you'd like, and be sure to follow the hashtag #jbfa on Twitter (and follow us @huffpostfood).

Check out some photos (courtesy of Tina Wong) of the night:

PHOTO GALLERY James Beard Awards 2012

Check out our liveblog below.

05/07/2012 9:29 PM EDT Final Award Of The Night! Outstanding Chef Chef Jose Andres won the award for Outstanding Chef last year. This year, he announced the new winner: Daniel Humm of four-starred Eleven Madison Park! "I wish there was an award for outstanding wife," said Humm. 05/07/2012 9:25 PM EDT Outstanding Restaurant Boulevard in San Francisco won the much-coveted Outstanding Restaurant award. Chef Nancy Oakes, perhaps sensing the crowd was getting restless, had one of the shortest acceptance speech of the night! 05/07/2012 9:21 PM EDT Outstanding Restaurateur "Any award you win from the Beard Foundation is bound to be memorable," said Thomas Keller, before announcing the winner. "The most exciting thing about the award is the party after," responded Daniel Boulud. We can hope that Tom Douglas will be partying afterwards, even if he wasn't present at the awards. He is the first restaurateur from Seattle to win this award. Worth noting: it is in fact spelled "restaurateur" not "restauranteur." 05/07/2012 9:15 PM EDT Outstanding Service New York's La Grenouille has been around for 50 years -- since 1962 -- and is now the winner of the Outstanding Service award. 05/07/2012 9:12 PM EDT Best New Restaurant Chef Grant Achatz and partner Nick Kokonas' Next Restaurant in Chicago, helmed by executive chef Dave Beran, has won for the Best New Restaurant. Next, which only debuted about a year ago, changes concepts every three months. So far, the restaurant has gone through Paris 1906, Thailand, Childhood and is currently serving an homage to El Bulli. 05/07/2012 9:08 PM EDT Outstanding Pastry Chef After a rather long interlude from Wolfgang Puck, the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award, Mindy Segal of Mindy's Hot Chocolate in Chicago won the award for Outstanding Pastry Chef. She couldn't be at the awards as she is currently renovating her restaurant. 05/07/2012 9:04 PM EDT "Run, Push And Shove" Alton Brown's wise words for how to snag some food for the Gala post-awards: "Run, push and shove" 05/07/2012 8:46 PM EDT Who's Who of Food & Beverage Of America Chef Rick Bayless announced the new inductees of "Who's Who of Food & Beverage Of America." If you haven't heard of these people already, now you can catch up! But hopefully you've heard of at least a few of them... The inductees are: Grant Achatz, of Alinea and Next



Mark Bittman, New York Times columnist and cookbook author



Dana Cowin, editor-in-chief of Food & Wine



Emily Luchetti, pastry chef and pastry Dean of the International Culinary Center



Marvin Shanken, founder of M. Shaken Communications



05/07/2012 8:28 PM EDT New York Dominates In Outstanding Restaurant Design, Outstanding Restaurant Graphics Design firm Bentel & Bentel Architects won the award for Outstanding Restaurant Design for Le Bernardin's redesign in New York. For Outstanding Restaurant Graphics, Pandiscio Co won for The The Americano at Hôtel Americano, also located in New York. 05/07/2012 8:04 PM EDT Deep Thoughts @ amateurgourmet : I wonder if there are more people Tweeting from the James Beard awards than there are people reading the Tweets. Load More