Claudette Zepeda is a San Diego-based chef and the culinary driving force behind Michelin-honored El Jardín. She has worked with some of the industry’s best and brightest, from Javier Plascencia at Bracero to Gavin Kaysen at El Bizcocho. She’s competed on two seasons of Top Chef and continually earns rave reviews—not to mention a passionate, dedicated following—for her hyper-regional Mexican masterpieces. Born in the U.S. and raised between Tijuana, Guadalajara…

Jeremiah Langhorne is Washington, D.C.’s culinary voice. He takes the Chesapeake and surrounding region and champions it, plates it and serves it up to guests who didn’t even know what they were missing. Jeremiah’s cooked and traveled around the world, being named in Eater’s Young Guns class of 2012, and one of Gayot’s “Top 5 Rising Chefs” in the US, all the while developing an appreciation for local fare. He…

Maximillian Petty’s cuisine is boundlessly imaginative, bursting from the plate in color and style. Each dish he creates at his Seattle restaurant, Eden Hill, is a fusion of art, science and flavor. His New American avant garde cooking has earned him a James Beard Rising Star Chef semi-finalist position three years running, and spots as an Eater Young Gun semi-finalist, one of Austin’s Under 40 and Zagat’s 30 under 30.…

Andrew Zimmerman is the five-time James Beard Award finalist behind Chicago’s Sepia and Proxi. The two restaurants have risen to must-eats of the Windy City—the former featuring elevated and stylish rustic American cuisine, the latter an itinerant ode to global delights. Aside from being named a Rising Star Chef, Jean Banchet Chef of the Year and an Iron Chef America winner, Sepia has earned a Michelin star for the past…

Ann Kim will make you question everything you know about pizza and still leave you craving for more. Her Minneapolis restaurants, Pizzeria Lola, Hello Pizza and Young Joni have topped countless top restaurant lists, and led her to recently win the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Midwest. A Korean immigrant, she brings her heritage to the forefront while topping it with cross-continental flavors and charring it all to 800-degree…