Posted on the Asheville Citizen-Times website on September 13, 2024
Asheville - A celebrated Asheville restaurant continues to shine with diners nationwide.
On Sept. 10, Chef Silver Iocovozzi of Neng Jr. was named one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs of 2024.
Food & Wine, a leading culinary media company, selected 13 U.S. chefs for the honor.
Silver Iocovozzi, executive chef and co-owner of Neng Jr., infuses traditional and contemporary recipes and techniques into the restaurant’s menu.
Neng Jr.’s, an intimate West Asheville Filipinx cuisine restaurant at 701 Haywood Road, reflects Iocovozzi’s heritage, family, career, and commitment to the community.
Iocovozzi, a second-generation Filipino American, was raised in eastern North Carolina and worked his way up through the hospitality industry in the South and Asheville.
“With a riotous, freewheeling menu effortlessly veering between Filipino and Southern food — sometimes lumpia and kinilaw grace the menu, and other times a slow-cooked Brunswick stew — there’s nothing else quite like it in the world,” Food & Wine Editor Raphael Brion wrote.
Other dishes mentioned included adobo oyster and duck adobo.
In past interviews, Iocovozzi told the Citizen-Times that Neng Jr. celebrates his mother, family recipes, and Metropolis Manila, Philippines food customs. He intended to create a safe space for the LGBT+ community and expose Asheville to different cuisines.
Food & Wine referred to Neng Jr. as the “South’s best-kept secret” yet the restaurant and chef have quickly become known since Iocovozzi and his husband Cherry Iocovozzi opened the speakeasy-style eatery ― the tucked away entrance is behind the Haywood Road building ― in July 2022.
Married couple and co-owners of Neng’s Jr., wine director, Cherry, left, and chef, Silver Iocovozzi, at their restaurant in West Asheville August 23, 2023.
In February, Neng Jr. was announced as one of the 47 restaurants to make the 2024 USA TODAY Restaurants of the Year list.
Neng Jr. was a finalist for Best New Restaurant in the 2023 James Beard Foundation Awards.
It was recognized on Time’s Time100 Next list and as one of Bon Appétit’s 24 Best New Restaurants in the same year.
In 2022, the Neng Jr. ranked No. 3 on Esquire’s top 40 list of Best New Restaurants in America in 2022, and Iocovozzi was named Rising Star of the Year.
Read Food & Wine’s profile on Neng Jr.’s at This Joyful Filipino Restaurant Is the South’s Best-Kept Secret.