Nick Anderer

Restaurant Maialino (Read a review)

Location New York City, NY

Why He’s Amazing Because he pays homage to traditional Roman cuisine while occasionally, and ingeniously, tweaking it: His breakfast eggs, prepared in classic pasta styles like cacio e pepe and amatriciana, are already legendary.

Culinary School Self-taught

Background Gramercy Tavern, Babbo, An American Place (New York City)

Quintessential Dish Maialino al forno—roast suckling pig with roasted potatoes

Essential Cookbook Le Ricette Regionali Italiane. “When I first started working in Milan, my chef said, ‘The first thing you’ve got to do is go out and buy this book.’ It feels like you’re an archivist who just discovered some ancient scroll. It has everything. When I’m looking to do something new with a new ingredient, I’ll see how Italians would use this ingredient back in the day and then do my own thing.”

Beach Bum “Some of my big hobbies are surfing and bodyboarding. I’ve been going to Hawaii since I was six years old. My family would take us out there because my dad, a professor, would take sabbaticals in Japan. We would stop in Hawaii, the halfway spot.”

Danny Bowien

Restaurant Mission Chinese Food (Read a review)

Location New York City, NY

Why He’s Amazing Because he converted an ultrapopular taco truck’s loyal following into fans of his proudly experimental take on Chinese food in San Francisco—and now devotees wait hours for a spot at his New York City outpost.

Culinary School Self-taught

Background Bar Tartine, Farina, Bar Crudo, Tsunami, Slow Club (San Francisco); Tribeca Grill (New York City)

Quintessential Dish Ma po tofu with pork shoulder and Sichuan pepper

How He Describes His Cooking “Americanized Oriental food,” played out in dishes like his supersmoky kung pao pastrami.

Italian Cred The Korean-American Bowien once won the World Pesto Championship in Italy, beating out 100 other finalists, 80 of whom were from Liguria, where pesto was born.

Giving Back Only one dish at Mission Chinese Food costs more than $16, and 75 cents from each entrée sold goes to a local food bank.

Aspiration In the next five years, he’d like to open restaurants in locations as diverse as Paris, Brooklyn and Oklahoma City—his hometown.

Justin Hilbert

Restaurant Gwynnett St. (Read a review)

Location Brooklyn, NY

Why He’s Amazing Because even among throngs of great restaurants in trendy Williamsburg, Brooklyn, his place stands out for its refined, complex yet harmonious food.

Culinary School Johnson & Wales University (Providence)

Background The George Hotel (Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, England); Rouge, (Philadelphia); WD~50, The Box (New York City)

Quintessential Dish Amish chicken with potatoes, beets, rutabagas and hay ash

Favorite Childhood Beverage Birch beer, preferably A-Treat brand, made in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Double Duty Hilbert makes the desserts at Gwynnett St., too. (He was pastry assistant to sweets expert Alex Stupak while at WD~50.)

On His Often Time-Consuming Cooking Methods For some dishes, “It’s a three-day process. For an appetizer. A lot of our dishes are like that. We’re like, ‘This is cool!’ Then it’s, ‘Oh, no. We have to do this every day?’”

Hooni Kim

Restaurant Danji (Read a review)

Location New York City, NY

Why He’s Amazing Because he’s cooking fantastic Korean food, gastropub style.

Culinary School The French Culinary Institute (New York City)

Background Daniel, Masa (New York City)

Quintessential Dish Spicy whelk salad with buckwheat noodles

Global Citizen Born in Seoul, he moved to England when he was three, then to New York City at age 10.

Change of Plans Kim was three years into medical school when he decided to quit to pursue cooking professionally. “I wanted a career where I could help people, but I found out I actually wanted to please people... Most people leave [Danji] happy and that means a lot.”

Newest Project His second restaurant, a Korean joomak (a.k.a. tavern) called Hanjan, opened in December 2012.

Joe Ogrodnek & Walker Stern

Restaurant Battersby (Read a review)

Location Brooklyn, NY

Why They’re Amazing Because from their tiny Brooklyn kitchen they’re turning out creative, market-fresh dishes that outshine those at many high-end Manhattan restaurants.

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

Background Ogrodnek: Union Square Café, Alain Ducasse at the Essex House, Gramercy Tavern (New York City); Anella (Brooklyn, NY); Stern: Mix (Las Vegas); Alain Ducasse at the Essex House, Blue Hill, The Vanderbilt (New York City); Anella (Brooklyn, NY)

Quintessential Dish Crisp kale salad with kohlrabi, brussels sprouts and peanuts

How Kale Can Taste So Good Some leaves are raw, others are flash-fried until crisp. They’re all tossed with a dressing made with bird chiles, palm sugar, lime juice and fish sauce.

Aha Moment Ogrodnek: “At the start of 2011, end of 2010, Walker was briefly working with me at Anella. It was so different from any other restaurant we had worked in: not in Manhattan, a really small restaurant with a minimal budget. So we were like, ‘We could do this. It’s the direction restaurants are going in anyway.’ We could have had a big restaurant in Manhattan in a long time or we could do this immediately.”

On Working at Alain Ducasse Stern: “In that kind of kitchen there’s one guy who just cooks fish. That’s it. He just cooks fish.” Ogrodnek: “There’s another guy who just does the fish sauce. That’s it. Sometimes there are two guys doing nothing but the fish sauce, because it’s a crazy sauce. Which is kind of crazy when you think that here we do everything ourselves.”

Kevin Pemoulie

Restaurant Thirty Acres (Read a review)

Location Jersey City, NJ

Why He’s Amazing Because he’s helping to make Jersey City a true restaurant destination with his innovative, farm-driven cooking.

Culinary School The French Culinary Institute (New York City)

Background CraftBar, Momofuku Noodle Bar (New York City)

Quintessential Dish Arctic char with brussels sprouts, chickpeas, beets and togarashi

First Food Industry Job Pizza delivery boy

What He Learned from David Chang To be daring

On Moving to Jersey City “I kind of wanted to get out of the city for a while. I came to Jersey City [in 2010]. My wife and I both really fell in love with the look of it all. It’s in the early stage of a burgeoning new culinary scene. New York seems very saturated to me.”

Where Thirty Acres Got Its Name From Boyle’s Thirty Acres, an arena built in Jersey City in 1921 to host a boxing match that New York City had rejected. “The story behind the fight and its moving from New York City to Jersey City struck a chord with us. It just so happens to also sound like a pretty good name for a restaurant—it suggests a certain freshness, I think.”

Justin Smillie

Restaurant Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria (Read a review)

Location New York City, NY

Why He’s Amazing Because he’s doing delicious things with everyday (yet incredibly high-quality) ingredients at this trattoria–cum–salumeria–cum–Italian deli and grocery.

Culinary School Coursework at the Culinary Institute of America (Hyde Park, NY)

Background The Mercer Kitchen, Gramercy Tavern, Barbuto, Il Buco (New York City)

Quintessential Dish Spit-roasted short ribs

What Got Him Hooked on Professional Kitchens “There’s such an adrenaline and energy in the kitchen.” Starting out as a dishwasher, “I just loved how fast everything moved and how loud everything was.”

Insistence on Fresh Ingredients He was fired from a now-shuttered East Village gastropub for spending too much money at the farmers’ market. For Il Buco, he shops the market “three or four days a week.”

What He Eats on His Day Off “A lot of Asian... After smelling Italian food six, seven days a week, 80 hours, I want a change. And that kind of helps cleanse the palate and start fresh again.”

Go-To Meal at Home “Yakitori: I am truly obsessed with grilling small chicken parts.”

Alex Stupak

Restaurant Empellón Cocina, Empellón Taqueria (Read a review)

Location New York City, NY

Why He’s Amazing Because despite the critical acclaim he received for his modernist desserts at some of the country’s top restaurants, Stupak has traded in his pastry tools to make extraordinary tacos.

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

Background WD~50 (New York City); Alinea (Chicago); The Federalist, Clio (Boston)

Quintessential Dish Tacos of beer-braised tongue with árbol chile salsa

On Opening a Mexican Restaurant “Here’s the story: A pastry chef likes Mexican food, has never cooked it, but decides to do it anyway.”

Essential Ingredient Empellón Taqueria goes through more than 250 avocados each day to make its excellent guacamole.

First Job Prep cook at Bobby Chics Italian Café in his hometown of Leominster, Massachusetts. “I’d clean all the equipment, peel potatoes, make piccata butter. I’ve come a long way.”

Michael Toscano

Restaurant Perla (Read a review)

Location New York City, NY

Why He’s Amazing Because he’s putting his talent for cooking all things meat into some of the best and boldest Italian food around.

Culinary School American Culinary Federation apprenticeship at the Pinehurst Resort (Pinehurst, NC)

Background Bouchon Bakery, Babbo, Manzo (New York City)

Quintessential Dish Cavatelli with duck ragù and foie gras

What He Cooks at Home When time permits, “I love cooking Mexican food like my mother and father cooked when I was young: caldo de pollo, tamales, barbacoa de res, tostadas, and my all-time favorite, menudo (beef tripe soup).”

Meat-Centric Even the cocktail menu at Perla has carnivorous leanings. The Tombstone Sunday Nights combines bourbon with pepperoni bitters.

Ingredient He Can’t Live Without Vinegar. It makes food “bright and sharp.”