Who’s Our Next Great Chef?

We polled food insiders across the city, and a quick consensus formed around a group of youthful culinary wizards who, in the past couple of years, have opened some of the most adventurous dining rooms in town. We found they had some fascinating things in common—Montreal, for one, where several of them grew up and trained. Lumière, for another, where a number of them received expert, high-pressure training in turning out refined food for a busy room. And something else as well: they’ve all taken the ingredients and techniques they mastered in the fine-dining world and reinvented them in rooms built for comfort and conviviality, where jackets are checked at the door and elbows are welcome on the table. Which is not to say they don’t have their own individual styles. In distinctly personal ways, these five young chefs are helping to define the way we eat now.

Angus An, 28, chef/owner, Gastropod

Jean-Christophe Poirier, 30, chef/co-owner, Chow

Jeremie Bastien, 26, chef, Boneta

Koji Zenimaru, 31, chef, Kingyo Izakaya

Marc-André Choquette, 31, chef, Voya at the Loden Hotel