The Publican is nominated for Outstanding Restaurant Graphics (photo by Sifu Renka)

The 2011 James Beard Foundation Award Finalists were announced via Twitter today. It’s no suprise that several Chicagoans made the list.

Girl & The Goat is nominated for Best New Restaurant in the country, along with Torrisi Italian Specialities and ABC Kitchen in New York, Menton in Boston and Benu in San Francisco.

Other national award nominees from our area include: Topolobampo for Outstanding Service, Paul Kahan for Outstanding Chef, Blackbird’s Patrick Fahy, Hot Chocolate’s Mindy Segal are both nominated for Outstanding Pastry Chef, The Publican for Outstanding Restaurant Graphics and Rich Melman for Outstanding Restaurateur.

Four of the nominees for Best Chef: Great Lakes are from Chicago, and include Schwa’s Michael Carlson, Avenue’s Curtis Duffy, North Pond’s Bruce Sherman and Vie’s Paul Virant.

For the journalism awards, the Chicago Tribune’s Monica Eng was nominated in the Environment, Food Politics and Policy category and the Reader’s Michael Gebert and Julia Thiel were nominated in the Multimedia Food Feature for their Key Ingredient series.

Visit the James Beard Foundation website for a full list of nominees.