Mat Clouser

Restaurant Swift’s Attic (Read a review)

Location Austin, TX

Why He’s Amazing Because he’s bringing light, imaginative (and spot-on) small plates like charred edamame with chile oil and pop rocks to Austin’s meat-centric restaurant scene.

Culinary School The New England Culinary Institute (Montpelier, VT)

Background Vespaio, Uchi, Kenichi, Jeffrey’s, Haddington’s, Rabbit + Hat private supper club (Austin)

Quintessential Dish Maine diver scallop tiradito with cucumber, ají amarillo and Hawaiian red salt

His Philosophy At Swift’s Attic He cooks what he likes to eat. “We joke that we’re the FUBU of kitchens: a ‘for us, by us’ kind of a thing.”

First Food He Made As A Professional Chef “Almost undoubtedly some type of quesadilla.”

One Of Many Food-Related Tunes He Loves “Fried Chicken and Gasoline” by the rock band Southern Culture on the Skids. “Every year, SCOTS does a weeklong stint in Austin at the Continental Club and is known to toss out fried chicken in the audience when they play this track. About 10 years ago, I actually caught a piece out of midair with my teeth!”

Most Useful Chef Secret For Home Cooks “If you’re unsure what a dish might need, try a little fresh lemon juice or vinegar—any acid really helps the flavors pop.”

Omar Flores

Restaurant Driftwood (Read a review)

Location Dallas, TX

Why He’s Amazing Because with his deft hand at both raw and cooked dishes, he’s given Dallas its best seafood restaurant ever.

Culinary School New Mexico State University (Las Cruces, NM), the Culinary Institute of America (Hyde Park, NY)

Background Abacus (Dallas)

Quintessential Dish Chargrilled octopus with potato confit, Manzanilla olives, pickled onions and smoked tomato vinaigrette

Culinary Lineage His father was a chef at several Mexican restaurants in El Paso, and for a time his family owned a restaurant in Chicago. “I wasn’t necessarily cooking, but I was always in the kitchen. I watched my parents cook and watched their technique. I’m a real visual person. If I see something, I can pick it up really quickly.”

On Having A Chef For A Father “I grew up eating really good food. As a kid, I never had Lunchables.”

Influences New York chefs Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin and Michael White of Marea. “Eating at both of those places, they were just phenomenal—probably some of the best meals I’ve had in my life. Their menus are about 95 to 98 percent seafood. It’s amazing what they do with it. It’s so fresh, and it’s so perishable. And I think it’s something a lot of restaurants in Dallas don’t do. Because if you don’t sell it, it goes to waste.”

On Finding Seafood In Dallas “Before [Driftwood] opened, you would have to go to a steak house and order something like shrimp cocktail, really cliché stuff.”

Terrence Gallivan & Seth Siegel-Gardner

Restaurant The Pass & Provisions (Read a review)

Location Houston, TX

Why They’re Amazing Because they’re turning out tasty, thoughtful American food in two restaurants (one rustic, one refined) under a single roof.

Culinary School Gallivan: The New England Culinary Institute (Burlington, VT); Siegel-Gardner: Self-taught

Background Gallivan: The Modern, Maze, August, Alto (New York City); Siegel-Gardner: Aquavit, Alto, Maze (New York City); C-House (Chicago); Kata Robata (Houston)

Quintessential Dish Pizza with guanciale, uni, roasted garlic and arugula

On Just August, Their One-Month Pop-Up Siegel-Gardner: “It was a chance for us to get to cook whatever the hell we wanted to cook for once in our lives. No owners, no trends, just three cooks (Siegel-Gardner, Gallivan and Oxheart chef Justin Yu).” Gallivan: “It turned out to be a de facto test market. We had talked about [opening a restaurant] in different cities—New York, Chicago—but after a month in Houston, seeing that the public was receptive, we decided to give it a go [there].”

Two Restaurants, One Space Provisions is the more casual of the two, with a focus on pasta and wood-fired pizza, while the 36-seat Pass offers a tasting menu and just one seating per night.

How They Describe The Pass & Provisions “It’s a place we’d want to go ourselves all the time.”

Max MacKissock

Restaurant The Squeaky Bean (Read a review)

Location Denver, CO

Why He’s Amazing Because his time spent cooking in Italy and his love of heirloom vegetables is evident in his spectacular dishes, which often feature a single ingredient in many ways—for instance, roasted, stewed, raw and pureed.

Culinary School Coursework at Schenectady County Community College (Schenectady, NY)

Background Glen Sanders Mansion (Scotia, NY), Great Northern Tavern (Keystone, CO), Vita (Denver)

Quintessential Dish “Variations of carrot” (carrot soup with citrus peanuts and kaffir lime ice cream)

Home-Grown Ingredients The restaurant has six garden beds near its original location and its own organic farm, the Bean Acre, in Lakewood, Colorado.

Food He Can’t Live Without “I could eat pizza for every meal.”

What’s With That Name “My business partner, Johnny [Ballen], and his girlfriend were having dinner, eating green beans. She commented how funny it is when they squeak on your teeth. The name is meant to symbolize freshness and what we do. We cook things that are at the peak of the season.”

Accolades The Squeaky Bean received The Denver Post’s first four-star review since the paper started its current rating system in 2005.

Kevin Naderi

Restaurant Roost (Read a review)

Location Houston, TX

Why He’s Amazing Because he’s serving excellent Persian-influenced Southern food with occasional Asian accents.

Culinary School The Art Institute of Houston

Background Brennan’s of Houston, Reef, Soma Sushi, Haven, Saint Genevieve (Houston)

Quintessential Dish Roasted cauliflower with bonito flakes, miso dressing, pine nuts and scallions

How Roost Came To Be “I didn’t think I was going to open up a restaurant. I was on Craigslist looking for an apartment [to rent] and this property came up....I saw the potential there, so I jumped on it.” He opened Roost a little more than two months later.

How His Family’s Roots Show Up In His Food In Persian-style pickles called torshi (“my grandma’s recipe”), saffron-pistachio ice cream with rosewater, Persian celery stew and herbed frittatas called kuku.

One-Man Show “If you want to talk to a manager, it’s me; you want to talk to the chef, you talk to me. I do all the purchasing, all the ordering, [I] pay the bills.”

Chris Shepherd

Restaurant Underbelly (Read a review)

Location Houston, TX

Why He’s Amazing Because he’s a devout locavore borrowing flavors from his city’s diverse immigrant population, with delicious results.

Culinary School The Art Institute of Houston

Background Brennan’s of Houston, Catalan (Houston)

Quintessential Dish Korean braised goat and dumplings

First Meal He Cooked “At age five I made breakfast for my mom. She ate a lot of egg shells.”

Wine Knowledge Shepherd ran Brennan’s half-million-dollar wine program for two and a half years. “To understand [food] you have to understand wine and your customers, the clientele.”

Custom-Raised Meat He purchases whole animals (he has an in-house butcher shop) from area ranchers but controls what they’re fed. His lambs get leftover mash from a Texas sake producer.

How He Describes The Food At Underbelly “New American Creole.” He’s heavily influenced by Houston’s large immigrant population—Vietnamese, Hispanics, Koreans, Indians. “We’re serving the food of locals who live in neighborhoods most people never see.”

Andrew Wiseheart

Restaurant Contigo (Read a review)

Location Austin, TX

Why He’s Amazing Because at his restaurant—inspired by a south Texas hunting lodge—he’s preparing terrific rustic dishes, like ox tongue sliders with pickled green tomato.

Culinary School Le Cordon Bleu (Austin)

Background Brix (Yountville); La Toque, Angèle (Napa); Olivia (Austin)

Quintessential Dish Rabbit with sage dumplings

Born San Angelo, Texas. “Cotton and cattle and oil, that’s about all there is out there.”

On His Travel Obsession “When I worked, I’d do nothing but save all my money so that later I could travel and spend it.” He hiked New York’s Adirondacks for 10 months, spent six months in Croatia, walked across Slovenia (it took him 21 days) and hitchhiked from Munich to Hungary before walking to Italy.

On Launching Contigo After moving back to Austin, “I met up with a childhood friend I hadn’t seen in ages—Ben Edgerton—who wanted to open a beer bar. I wanted to open a meat market to focus on butchery. We met and discussed meshing our ideas.”

Insider Tip Contigo’s best seat is outside, at the picnic tables under the cedar elm and strung lights. When the weather gets chilly, the staff lends guests Mexican blankets.

Justin Yu

Restaurant Oxheart (Read a review)

Location Houston, TX

Why He’s Amazing Because he’s leaving Texans speechless with his delicious, artistic renderings of vegetables.

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

Background *17 (Houston); Green Zebra, Spring, C-House (Chicago); Ubuntu (Napa)

Quintessential Dish Slow-roasted okra with marinated okra seeds, corn pudding, horsemint and salsa maro

Inspiration A meal he ate in Copenhagen, at the restaurant Relæ. “I want to do a similar thing with Oxheart. Serious food without the trappings of a high-end restaurant.”

Style “Everything comes from the gulf. We try to be as creative as we can without it being obnoxious.”

Aspirations “It’s always been a dream of mine to open something more progressive in my hometown.”

Oxheart’s Reception Yu has a reputation for vegetarian-focused food, stemming partly from his time at Ubuntu. Of his often-changing menus, one in three is completely vegetarian. “It’s a lot less protein than most people [are used to], but the reception has been overwhelmingly good.”