By John Mariani
Tom Colicchio
In 2001, Tom Colicchio had already spent decades working his way from a Jersey seafood joint to helping create the now-iconic Gramercy Tavern. But it was with the arrival of Craft that year that he gave a new vision of fine dining, one stripped of tablecloths and butter sauces, one in which even the lightbulbs went naked. Colicchio wasn’t the first chef to shop at green markets and source ingredients impeccably, but he was the first to make the establishment take notice. He now owns restaurants across the country and a bald pate recognizable from Seattle to Savannah. In this role he’s redefining another term: chef. He is living proof that being a great contemporary chef can encompass what happens behind a stove as well as away from it: mentoring chefs de cuisine, managing kitchens with the right mix of authority and humor (I know, having once worked for him), advocating for food issues, and inviting the masses watching TV into the world of food. —Elizabeth Gunnison
Frank Stitt
In 1984, when the words Southern and cuisine were rarely used in the same sentence, Esquire named Highlands in Birmingham one of the Best New Restaurants in America. I wrote that chef-owner Frank Stitt’s bistro appealed to “the affluent suburban crowds coaxed out of their clubs to come downtown and eat well for a change” — Georgia Bay scallops with basil, for example, and local baked oysters.
Back when Paula Deen was working as a bank teller, Alabama-bred Stitt was already at the forefront of New Southern cuisine. Since then, he’s opened two other excellent restaurants and racked up awards. But what he hasn’t done is also remarkable: He has not left Alabama, instead staying put to turn out highly personal food that has inspired a wave of Southern chefs. And yet like any great chef — and any true Southerner — he keeps searching for better ways to do things, which means his days of influence are far from over. —John Mariani
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