Karen Akunowicz is a James Beard-nominated chef known for the food she cooks in the kitchens of Boston’s top restaurants and on television as a contestant on the thirteenth season of the Bravo competition show Top Chef. Currently, Akunowicz is the executive chef at the South End staple, Myers + Chang. She was nominated for a James Beard Award as the best chef of the Northeast In 2015, 2016, and 2017. She was named among Marie Claire magazine's “21 Badass Women Changing the Food World.”  Before Myers + Chang, Akunowicz created and taught at the Fresh Roots Culinary Program at UTEC Lowell in Lowell, Massachusetts; worked in the kitchen of Oleana in Cambridge, Massachusetts; was a chef at L’Avion Blue Enoteca in Modena, Italy; and was a founding chef at the Beehive in the South End of Boston. She is the coauthor of the cookbook Myers + Chang at Home, which she wrote with fellow famed Boston chef and partner at Myers + Chang, Joanne Chang.

"5 Things You Didn't Know About Top Chef Star Karen Akunowicz"

"Table Talk: Karen Akunowicz of Myers + Chang"