Raúl Correa

Restaurant Zest (Read a review)

Location San Juan, Puerto Rico

Why He’s Amazing Because he’s brought molecular gastronomy to Latin cooking in dishes like Blue Point oysters with ocean essence and blood-orange-and-Champagne foam.

Culinary School Instituto de Educacion Universal (Carolina, Puerto Rico)

Background Marriott Hotel (Bedford, MA, and San Juan, Puerto Rico), Normandie Hotel (San Juan, Puerto Rico)

Quintessential Dish Pan-fried snapper with mashed plantains and saffron-chorizo broth

Where He Got Interested in Cooking “My uncle used to travel a lot, to Italy and France. He [would bring back] recipes—he always liked to cook, back when it was wild to see a man cooking all the time. Back in those years, there was no Food Network. It was normal for only mothers and grandmothers to be in the kitchen. When I went to [culinary] school it was weird for me to see so many guys. Then I realized it was normal [for men to cook].”

How He Describes His Cooking Style “Latin food with a touch of French. For example, seafood pegao: It’s bouillabaisse topped with crackers made from rice that sticks to the bottom of the pan.” (The crusty rice is called pegao, and many Puerto Ricans consider it a treat.)

Michael Doyle

Restaurant Maurepas Foods (Read a review)

Location New Orleans, LA

Why He’s Amazing Because he’s redefining modern Southern cooking with audacious dishes such as butternut squash with snails, pickled peanuts and spiced whiskey butter.

Culinary School Self-taught

Background Dante’s Kitchen (New Orleans)

Quintessential Dish Pimentón sausage sandwich with squid, romesco sauce, mustard greens and aioli

Where He Discovered He Was Good at Cooking Working in the dining halls at the University of Colorado, where he studied English.

Local Produce Maurepas Foods has its own herb garden, and works with nearby farmers and suppliers.

What Distinguishes Him From Other Chefs “If we’re talking about making fish with butter sauce and crabmeat on top, there’s 750 other guys in this town who can do that as well or better than I can. But if you’re talking about putting a bunch of pickles all over the brussels sprouts, I’m pretty much your guy.”

Juan Carlos Gonzalez

Restaurant SoBou (Read a review)

Location New Orleans, LA

Why He’s Amazing Because his dishes inspired by Creole and Puerto Rican street food—like shrimp-and-tasso pinchos [bar snacks]—take pub food to a new level.

Culinary School The Culinary Institute of America (Hyde Park, NY)

Background Internship at Le Bernardin (New York City); Commander’s Palace, Café Adelaide (New Orleans); Bistro Alex (Houston)

Quintessential Dish Duck “debris” (confit) and butternut beignets with foie gras fondue and chicory-coffee ganache

Born Puerto Rico. “Over there, the food, culture and music is unbelievable. I find a lot of similarities in New Orleans.”

First Mentor Eric Ripert at Le Bernardin. “I was 18 years old, going on 19. I was a kid, right out of high school. I went to the interview, and it was Chef Eric and me, and he was like, ‘You don’t have any schooling. You don’t have any experience in the kitchen and you don’t know anything. I’ll hire you.’ And I was like, ‘Sweet. How much am I going to get paid?’ And he said, ‘You’re not.’ I worked [as an intern] for free for him for one year... It was a great experience.”

Phillip Lopez

Restaurant Root (Read a review)

Location New Orleans, LA

Why He’s Amazing Because he’s making new American food that’s unabashedly postmodern. For instance, wanting to bring to life a childhood memory of his Mexican-Cuban father’s leathery-smelling cigars, he created a dish of scallops with chorizo dust and caramelized cauliflower, served in a cigar box with Cohiba smoke piped into it.

Culinary School Self-taught

Background Coastal Grill (Virginia Beach); Citronelle (Washington, DC); August, Lüke, The American Sector, Rambla (New Orleans)

Quintessential Dish Smoked cornmeal-encrusted oysters with mustard-green foam

Born New Orleans. But growing up in an Army family, he lived all over the world: Germany, France, Spain, Austria, Holland and Puerto Rico.

Newest Project Square Root, a more intimate space than Root, with a tasting menu downstairs and a bar and lounge upstairs.

Jeff McInnis

Restaurant Yardbird Southern Table & Bar (Read a review)

Location Miami Beach, FL

Why He’s Amazing Because he’s bringing unabashedly Southern and homey food to style- and trend-obsessed Miami.

Culinary School Johnson & Wales University (Charleston, SC)

Background Gigi, DiLido Beach Club at the Ritz-Carlton (Miami); Fossett’s (Keswick, VA); Azie (San Francisco); Asolare (St. John, Virgin Islands)

Quintessential Dish Fried chicken with cheddar waffles, green tomato chow chow and watermelon salad

Best Known For Being the hunky heartthrob on Top Chef Season 5.

Favorite Nonwork Activities Boat fishing, wakeboarding, surfing

Perk of Running His Own Kitchen “I [can] play loud country music, rock or gangster rap during the middle of service if I feel the urge.”

José Mendin & Sergio Navarro

Restaurant Pubbelly (Read a review)

Location Miami Beach, FL

Why They’re Amazing Because they’re revitalizing Miami Beach’s Sunset Harbour neighborhood with their boisterous, Asian-inspired gastropub.

Culinary School Mendin: Johnson & Wales University (North Miami); Navarro: Hotel Escuela (Madrid)

Background Mendin: Mercadito, Nobu, Veranda (Miami); SushiSamba (Las Vegas); Navarro: Nobu (Miami), SushiSamba (Las Vegas), La Broche (Miami, Madrid)

Quintessential Dish Ramen in lemongrass and miso broth with poached egg and barbecued pork belly

Expanding the Empire In late 2011, Mendin, Navarro and their partner Andreas Schreiner opened Pubbelly Sushi, followed by Barceloneta (two locations) and Macchialina in 2012. Just opened: PB Steak.

How They Got Into the Food Business Navarro: He grew up in Madrid, but his mother cooked the rustic, seasonally focused food of the Basque region. “I learned about culinary aromas and Spanish flavors from my mother. A passion for cooking was something I identified with as a young kid.” Mendin: He still has a frayed cookbook that belonged to his grandmother, a professional cook, but he wasn’t always keen on following in her footsteps: “Before I decided to become a chef, I never cooked [a day] in my life. My parents took me out to dinner every Sunday. My dad would look at the new restaurant reviews in the Puerto Rican newspaper, and we would go all over the island to try these places.”

Hari Pulapaka

Restaurant Cress (Read a review)

Location DeLand, FL

Why He’s Amazing Because the India-born chef is making modern fusion food with an amazing sense of spice.

Culinary School Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts (Orlando, FL)

Background Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge (Denali National Park, AK); externship at Canoe (Toronto)

Quintessential Dish Game tenderloin of the day with blackberry habanero sauce

Day Job Pulapaka’s day job is mathematics professor; he cooks on the restaurant’s line each night. “It’s very hard balancing both jobs, because I’m a perfectionist.”

How He Got Into the Food Business Pulapaka was up late watching TV and saw a commercial for Le Cordon Bleu. “My goal was to get educated, then to travel and cook and have cool experiences.”

Giorgio Rapicavoli

Restaurant Eating House (Read a review)

Location Coral Gables, FL

Why He’s Amazing Because he’s translated his devotion to slow food, graffiti and childhood treats like Oreos into a wildly successful pop-up that’s now a brick-and-mortar restaurant.

Culinary School Coursework at Johnson & Wales University (North Miami)

Background Chispa (Doral, FL), 660 at The Angler’s (Miami Beach)

Quintessential Dish Heirloom tomatoes with frozen coconut milk

Lessons Learned Rapicavoli grew up helping his Italian mother make pomodoro sauce. A semester short of graduating from cooking school with a near-perfect GPA, he had an argument with a teacher over the proper way to make tomato sauce. “Forget it, dude. What they teach in school may be a basis but it’s not necessarily practical.”

How He Funded His Pop-Up He invested the $10,000 he won for taking first prize on Season 10, Episode 3 of the Food Network’s Chopped.

Inspirations “Miami has so many different cultural influences—Italians, Cubans, people from Nigeria and Ecuador. My food isn’t necessarily a fusion of these cultures, but they influence my cooking.”

Michael Stoltzfus

Restaurant Coquette (Read a review)

Location New Orleans, LA

Why He’s Amazing Because in a town full of fancy dining rooms, his modest bistro serves refined dishes with a sense of place-like tempura-fried Gulf shrimp with sambal, grapefruit and mâche.

Culinary School Self-taught

Background August (New Orleans)

Quintessential Dish Soft-shell crab with pickled cabbage and preserved lemon

First Cooking Job “I was getting ready to go to college, and two weeks before, my mom opened a bakery. She said, ‘Come work for me, make a little extra money.’ I started there doing breakfast—simple egg sandwiches, simple omelets. And I never went to college.”

How He Honed His Skills “I worked for good chefs in small kitchens.”

Favorite Technique Braising or slow cooking. “I enjoy that transformation of something that is tough and not that appetizing into one of the best things you could ever eat.”