Wynn Resorts collected one of the hospitality industry's most significant culinary honors in 2026 when Chef Sarah Thompson of Casa Playa received the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: Southwest — a recognition that places Wynn Las Vegas among a short list of integrated resort operators to hold that distinction. The accolade anchors a broader run of ratings and rankings the company accumulated in the first half of the year across dining, accommodations, workplace culture, and sustainability.
Dining & Guest Experience
Beyond the James Beard win, Wynn Las Vegas earned Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star Awards for Wynn Las Vegas Tower Suites, Encore Las Vegas Tower Suites, The Spa at Wynn, The Spa at Encore, and Wing Lei. The Southern Nevada Hotel Concierge Association handed Wynn Las Vegas eight Top Honors Awards, covering Awakening (Best Production Show), Delilah (Best Supper Club), PISCES (Best Seafood Restaurant), Wing Lei (Best Asian Restaurant), SW Steakhouse (Best Steakhouse), Wynn Golf Club (Best Golf Course), Encore Beach Club (Best Dayclub), and XS Nightclub (Best Nightclub). For operators tracking restaurant recognition trends and culinary awards, the breadth of venue-level honors here underscores how deeply a resort's food-and-beverage programming drives overall brand equity.
Wynn Las Vegas also entered Condé Nast Traveler's inaugural Triple Crown collection, reserved for hotels appearing across all three of the publication's flagship franchises: the Hot List, Gold List, and Readers' Choice Awards — a difficult trifecta for any property to achieve.
Corporate Standing
At the companywide level, Wynn Resorts received 18 Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star Awards in February, marking the 20th consecutive year that Wynn Tower Suites at Wynn Las Vegas has held Five-Star status. The company describes that streak as the longest-running Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star record among independent hotel companies globally. Encore Boston Harbor, the operator's Massachusetts property, continued its standing as the largest regional resort in North America to achieve Five-Star recognition, with The Spa at Encore Boston Harbor earning its own award this cycle.
The corporate honors list spans Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies and Fortune 1000, Forbes Most Trusted Companies in America, Forbes America's Best Large Employers, multiple Newsweek workplace rankings — including categories focused on women, mental wellbeing, and diversity — and TIME Magazine's America's Best Companies. The range signals that Wynn's ratings story is no longer just about room product or gaming floors; it increasingly reflects how the company manages labor, culture, and sustainability, all of which feed directly into hospitality industry workforce and culture coverage.
What It Means for Operators
For foodservice and hospitality professionals, the Wynn sweep illustrates a competitive reality: luxury integrated resorts are now benchmarking against standalone fine-dining establishments and specialty spa operators, not just peer casino hotels. Chef Thompson's James Beard win in particular signals that resort kitchens are being taken seriously at the highest levels of culinary evaluation. Food & Beverage Magazine has tracked the rising profile of resort-based culinary talent as a driver of destination visitation, and the Casa Playa recognition fits squarely into that pattern. Operators investing in chef-driven restaurant programming within hotel or resort environments have fresh evidence that such investment can earn recognition at the national culinary level.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
