Trazee Travel Announces the Inaugural Recipient of the Joey Fecci Award for Culinary Excellence

Trazee Travel is honored to announce the inaugural winner of the Joey Fecci Award for Culinary Excellence. Congratulations to Chef Rashida Holmes, owner, Bridgetown Roti, in Los Angeles, California. The award is named to honor the life and legacy of Joseph D. Fecci, who passed away in April 2024 at the young age of 26 in Nashville, Tennessee.

At the time of his passing, Fecci was in the early stages of opening his own restaurant following his role as chef de cuisine at Yolan at The Joseph, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Nashville. To help keep his legacy alive, Trazee Travel launched the award to honor a professional chef under the age of 40 who shows passion, dedication, originality, creativity and leadership, qualities Fecci embodied and lived every day.

© Rashida Holmes

Chef Holmes began her career in 2008 in Baltimore, Maryland, working full-time at an Italian restaurant while attending culinary school. In 2010 Holmes moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to work with James Beard-nominated Big Burrito group at its pan-Asian restaurant, Soba. Shortly after moving to Los Angeles in 2013, she accepted a chef de cuisine position to open French-inspired Terrine in West Hollywood. Taste, value and efficiency are the cornerstones of Chef Holmes’ food and approach to the restaurant business. If those are in place, the love will flow onto the plate.

Holmes has experience with different cuisines, chefs, restaurants and markets, allowing her to bring a unique perspective to the industry. Chef Holmes launched the pop-up concept Bridgetown Roti in 2019 as a tribute to her Afro-Caribbean roots. Chef Holmes’ accolades are many, including James Beard Awards Semifinalist for Outstanding Chef 2024, James Beard Awards Finalist for Emerging Chef 2023, No. 29 on the Los Angeles Times’ 101 List by Bill Addison, RE:Her Academy Scholar Grant winner, Best New Restaurant by Eater 2021, Pop-Up of the Year by Esquire 2021 and Discovery Grant winner.

© The Joseph Hotel Nashville

Learn more at rashidaholmes.com, and please join us in congratulating the much-deserved inaugural winner of the Joey Fecci Award for Culinary Excellence. Fecci’s memory lives on, and his influence remains strong. He had been in the kitchen from a young age, holding his first restaurant job at 15 and graduating from The Culinary Institute of America before working at Aureole, Charlie Palmer’s Michelin-starred flagship, and Per Se in New York City. He is remembered as a bright light of positivity and inspiration in the lives of everyone he touched. Aside from his love of cooking, he enjoyed golf, skiing and sharing meals with loved ones. He was a passionate New York sports fan and dedicated to fitness and running.

To further honor his memory and dedication to the culinary arts, his family established the Joey Fecci Foundation, a Tennessee 501c3 organization. The foundation recently granted its first culinary scholarships. Learn more at joeyfeccifoundation.org.