At last night’s James Beard Foundation Awards ceremony in New York, four of the five chefs nominated for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic were local to the Washington area. The nominations were familiar territory for Johnny Monis of Komi, Vikram Sunderam of Rasika, Peter Pastan of Obelisk and Cathal Armstrong of Restaurant Eve in Alexandria, all of whom vied for the honor in previous years.

The winner? Maricel Presilla of Cucharamama in Hoboken, N.J.

New Jersey? Pfft. Shouldn’t a restaurant literally across the river from the West Village of Manhattan compete against the other New York City restaurants? If Hoboken is part of the Mid-Atlantic, then Silver Spring might as well be a quaint town in New England. But the five boroughs have a category unto their own. The James Beard Foundation defines the mid-Atlantic region as New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, D.C. and Virginia. And voters gave the nod to Persilla.

Other nominees not winning include every other Washington-based chef, restaurant, bar program or food writer nominated for a 2012 award.

Tweeting from the awards, José Andrés, the winner of last year’s coveted Outstanding Chef honor, called for “more help from our local press,” calling out the Post’s Tom Sietsema and Tim Carman. Perhaps he didn’t notice that Washingtonian’s Todd Kliman was nominated for the M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing prize. (He lost to John T. Edge of Saveur magazine.) In response, Carman theorized that “it has more to do with the large number of NYC-based voters.” I mean, duh. Hoboken!