NEW YORK – Twenty minutes after Birmingham’s Highlands Bar and Grill missed out -- for the sixth straight year -- on winning the James Beard Foundation Award as the country’s best restaurant, Frank Stitt was already talking about how to his restaurant has to keep getting better in hopes of coming back here for a seventh time.

“This just sort of makes me want to go back and to try harder and just be more inspired,” Stitt said in the lobby of the David H. Koch Theater in New York’s Lincoln Center. “I was just thinking about how this industry is so amazing to come together. Even though we’re competitors, we really like each other, we learn from each other, we get inspired by each other.

“And I think one of the great things that the Beard foundation does is that it gets us all together, and it makes us raise the bar a little bit more and more and more. So I think that’s something for us to take that back with us.”

The Slanted Door, a Vietnamese restaurant that San Francisco chef Charles Phan opened about 20 years ago, won the outstanding restaurant category this year, beating Highlands, Chicago's Spiaggia and New York's Hearth and WD-50. Located in the Ferry Building and overlooking San Francisco Bay, the Slanted Door was previously a finalist in 2008 and 2013.

“I am such a huge fan of Charles Phan and Tony Montuano (of Spiaggia),” Stitt said “But Charles Phan is one of the hardest-working, most talented chefs. His food is some of the most exciting food. They’ve got an incredible wine program and they’ve got one of the great views in America. You have a great time when you walk in the Slanted Door, so it’s certainly well-deserved.”

Restaurateur John Besh, who owns August and six other New Orleans restaurants, was inducted into the Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America; seventy-five-year-old snowball shop Hansen’s Sno-Bliz received an America’s Classic award; Peche Seafood Grill won best new restaurant; and chefs Sue Zemanick of Gautreau’s and Ryan Prewitt of Peche Seafood Grill tied for best chef in the South.

Representing Highlands at the Beard Awards were Stitt and his wife Pardis, who is director of operations, as well as server Goren Avery, beverage manager Matt Gilpin and chef de cuisine Zack Redes.

“We’re a team,” Stitt said. “We’re a family. Obviously, Goren and I have worked together for over 30 years, and Matt has been with us almost 10 years, so that’s kind of an unusual relationship when you’ve worked together with people for so long. We know each other. We love being together. We have a blast just hanging out, going to restaurants and learning and having fun.”

To see a photo gallery of some of the chefs at Monday night's James Beard Award ceremony, click on the slideshow at the top of this story.