This husband-and-wife team runs the fast-growing Scratch Restaurants group that’s expanded from one restaurant in Los Angeles to multiple concepts — Scratch Bar, Sushi by Scratch and Pasta Bar — across L.A., Miami, Austin, Seattle, Chicago, Montreal, and Montecito, Calif.

Phillip Frankland Lee worked his way through top kitchens in Los Angeles and Chicago before opening his first restaurant, Scratch Bar, in Beverley Hills (since moved to Encino, Calif.), in 2013. Along the way he also appeared on Top Chef and became a Food Network regular, notching victories on Chopped, Guy’s Grocery Games, and Cutthroat Kitchen. Margarita Kallas-Lee came to the U.S. from Latvia as a teen and developed a love for pastry, first at the historic D’Cache in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Toluca Lake. Now she designs and runs the dessert program at all Scratch Restaurants.

The duo has maintained a fierce dedication to their “by scratch” ethos, and everything served at their restaurants is made in-house, from butter and food dyes to house-aged cheeses and cured meats. Over the years, their burgeoning portfolio has received attention and acclaim, and in 2021, Sushi by Scratch in Montecito, Calif., and Pasta Bar in Los Angeles were each awarded one Michelin star.

-Kevin Gray

Laura Meyer knows her pizza. In fact, she's been making it for around two decades and now has finally opened her own restaurant, Pizzeria de Laura, in Berkeley, Calif. But the chef didn't just take the skills she started honing at the age of 17 by working at Tony’s Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco, and then later as an instructor for Tony’s International School of Pizza. Nor does she necessarily highlight the pizza that won her the first-ever award for Best American-Style Pizza at the Caputo Cup in Naples, or even the two wins before that, including one in Parma, Italy, where she was the first woman and first American to win in the category of Pizza in Teglia — a Roman-style pizza served in aa baking tray — and one in Las Vegas during the Pizza Expo for the Best Non-Traditional Pizza.

Instead, Meyer specializes in New York-style pies and three types of pan pizzas: Detroit, Sicilian, and Grandma, each using its own unique fermented pizza dough, something, she said, that's always evolving. This act of constantly growing and learning about pizza is part of why Meyer loves the food so much. Even though her restaurant has already accrued a following, she never wants to stop playing with dough and creating new and better pies.

-Linnea Covington

Ambrely Ouimette’s culinary career started earlier than most. She got her first restaurant job washing dishes when she was just 12 years old. A few years later, she peddled hot dogs in New York City, and by age 16 she was training under a sushi chef at a Boston seafood restaurant. That led to a position with Matsuhisa, the acclaimed restaurant by chef Nobu Matsuhisa, in Denver.
 

She joined the team at Sushi | Bar in Austin in 2021, whose kitchen was then run by Phillip Frankland Lee and Margarita Kallas-Lee, who were minority shareholders in partnership with Steve Michaels of Asylum Entertainment Group. After the Lees and Michaels parted ways, Ouimette was promoted to executive chef, and she put her own spin on the omakase format. Traditional nigiri is complemented by Ouimette’s creative dishes that enlist a variety of salts and house-made ferments, and diners are treated to a visual journey across 17 courses.

Sushi | Bar reservations proved to be some of the most coveted in Austin, and its popularity led to an expansion in 2023, so the restaurant could serve more diners each night. Under Ouimette’s culinary vision, Sushi | Bar expanded into Miami Beach in 2022, and the group is working to open additional locations in Chicago and Dallas later this year.

-Kevin Gray

One thing that’s easy to notice about Oscar Padilla is he is constantly wearing a big, warm, and radiant smile. Another is the remarkable restaurant that he opened on April 1, 2023. Gaucho Parilla in the Denver suburb of Arvada, Colo., is located in the Freedom Street Social food hall, and there the chef whips up Argentine dishes such as choripan sandwiches, made with Argentinian chorizo, caramelized onions, and chimichurri on a French roll; churrasco a la brasa, which is steak with fried potatoes and chimichurri; and Latin-styled tapas including roasted cauliflower with honey-chile garlic sauce and spicy pumpkin seeds, as well as chorizo empanadas.

For Padilla, cooking has been a big part of his life and the Los Angeles-born Latino really embraced his heritage when he moved back to Mexico at a young age. There he started learning the traditional cooking styles as he watched his grandmother cook for the family. Padilla went on to study in Mexico City, and then began working at the famed Club de Banqueros, also in that city. Padilla made his way back to the United States to work for chef Richard Sandoval, who now has more than 60 restaurants globally. Padilla also has bragging rights after winning an episode of the Food Network’s show “Chopped" in February, 2023. But even with the fame that comes from doing well on television, the chef has the same humble and friendly demeanor and pure dedication to make delicious food that he loves.

-Linnea Covington

While chef Kevin Tien was working up the ranks of Tsunami, a Japanese restaurant with multiple locations in Louisiana, he was also working on a master's degree in business intelligence and business analytics at Louisiana State University. When it was time to decide between a job as a financial analysis or working at the Houston location of Uchi, Tyson Cole’s modern Japanese concept, Tien went for the restaurant work, indicating how much the chef wanted to be in the industry. Eventually he came to Washington, D.C., to work at Kaz Sushi Bistro, Jose Andres' Oyamel Cocina Mexicana, and the now-closed D.C. location of Momofuku. Then in 2020 he finally opened his own spot, Moon Rabbit, at the hotel InterContinental Washington D.C. — The Wharf.

There Tien showcases not only all the fine sushi and Asian food training that got him to this moment, but his own Vietnamese heritage and upbringing in Cajun country. The upscale menus showcase his skills with dishes such as bo kho short rib with carrot cavatelli and celery root foam; orange duck with palm sugar glaze and milk choy; five-spice foie mousse with sesame tuile; and beignets and coffee, a dish of savory fried dough, prosciutto and red-eye glaze. Tien also does a more casual lunch at Moon Rabbit with dishes like gumbo ramen, fried chicken wings glazed in a garlic-ginger fish caramel, and ca chien ca ri, a mesh of Nashville hot and Vietnamese spices with catfish.

-Linnea Covington

For chef Yia Vang, his Minneapolis restaurant Union Hmong Kitchen isn’t just a great place to eat, it’s his way of showing love for his heritage, his customers, and the purveyors who provide the ingredients. Vang believes all dishes tell a story, and at his restaurant that means highlighting bits of his own journey from being born in a Thai refugee camp to coming to the United States and having his family resettle in Wisconsin. The dishes Vang creates also help showcase Hmong flavors and bring them to American palates. A signature option is the zoo siab (Hmong for “happy”) meal, for which customers pick a protein such as Hmong sausage, ginger-lemon grass chicken or sweet tamari-glazed pork belly and eat it with lettuce wraps along with purple sticky rice, pickled vegetables, and khao sen rice noodles.

But it’s not just food that Union Hmong Kitchen is known for. Vang has made his restaurant inside the Graze Food Hall an experience too, featuring Hmong culture, stories, and rituals. The Hmong are a nomadic group of people from the hills of Southeast Asia, but Vang has planted roots in Minneapolis through his thoughtful eatery. Coming later this year those roots will grow as the chef opens another concept in the Twin Cities, Vinai, meant to honor the past, present, and future of Hmong cooking.

-Linnea Covington

Chris Viaud runs the farm-to-table restaurant, Greenleaf, and a Haitian concept called Ansanm, both located in Milford, N.H. A first-generation American of Haitian heritage, Viaud studied at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I., and worked at Deuxave, one of Boston’s top-rated French restaurants, before opening his own concepts. His culinary prowess was awarded with a spot on Top Chef, and he was named a 2022 James Beard Emerging Chef semifinalist.

When Greenleaf opened in 2019, it quickly established itself as a local favorite by taking an unpretentious view of fine dining. Ansanm, which means “together” in Haitian Creole, got its start in 2021 as a pop-up where Viaud could explore his Haitian roots and family recipes with diners eager to learn more about the cuisine. That success led Viaud to open a permanent space, and his family worked to develop his mother’s homecooked meals into replicable recipes.

In a nod to Caribbean hospitality, Ansanm is casual and comfortable, and the menu features dishes like chicken in Creole sauce served with rice and fried plantains, fried chicken sandwiches, and squash soup. It’s a personal project that builds on the trust and following Viaud built at Greenleaf and is a prime example of his versatility as a chef.

-Kevin Gray