Additionally, Bouley has published a cookbook, East of Paris, featuring Eastern European recipes. He has also travelled extensively in Japan and is a veritable master of Japanese cooking techniques. In more recent years, he has developed a reputation for effortlessly blending obscure Japanese ingredients with his particular brand of French cooking.

Kilpatrick opened two bakeries in 1999, High-Rise Bread Company and High-Rise Pie Company, where some of her recipes are still featured today. In 2001, she and James-Beard-Award-winning Ana Sortun reunited to develop the concept for Oleana restaurant. While working with Sortun, a nimble spice user, Kilpatrick fell in love with the exotic flavors and spices of the Mediterranean and Middle East.

At Oleana, Kilpatrick’s contemporary interpretations of traditional eastern Mediterranean desserts and pastries compliment the Middle Eastern inflected cuisine of Sortun. Kilpatrick brilliantly incorporates Middle Eastern spices and ingredients like orange blossoms, rose petals, kaymek, and kadayifi. In August of 2008, Kilpatrick and Sortun collaborated once again to open Sofra, a bakery and café inspired by the cuisine of Turkey, Lebanon, and Greece. Kilpatrick has been named Boston’s Best Pastry Chef by Boston Magazine in 2002, 2007 and 2008.

Dr. Nathan Myhrvold and Chris Young bring real meaning to terms like mad kitchen science and whiz-chef. They both have backgrounds in science, mathematics, economics, physics—their credentials alone will make your head spin. But it’s their enthusiasm for innovation in culinary arts and food technology that sets them apart from your average scientists. Young, who has degrees in mathematics and biochemistry from the University of Washington, was hired by Heston Blumenthal in 2003 to build and lead the research team at The Fat Duck. Over nearly five years, Young expanded the experimental kitchen to eight chefs and scientists, who together developed dozens of innovative techniques and recipes that helped The Fat Duck rise to become a top-rated restaurant in the world. In late 2007, Young returned to Seattle to work with Dr. Nathan Myhrvold, a scientist and entrepreneur with degrees in mathematics, geophysics, and space science from UCLA and in mathematical economics and theoretical physics from Princeton. Dr. Myhrvold founded Microsoft Research in 1991 and served as the company’s first chief technology officer until 1999. He then co-founded Intellectual Ventures, a firm dedicated to creating and investing in inventions. Currently CEO of I.V., as well as one of its many inventors, Myhrvold has more than 100 patents to his credit, including several related to food technology. An avid practitioner of modernist cuisine, Myhrvold worked for two years as a stagier at Rover’s in Seattle and trained at the Ecole de la Varenne in Burgundy. His original research on sous vide cooking has been published in numerous reports to eGullet and covered by the New York Times Magazine, Wired, and the Wall Street Journal. Myhrvold and Young are currently writing a comprehensive book covering the techniques of traditional and modern cuisine and the science behind it.

Tramonto grew up in Rochester, New York, and was exposed to what he calls classic “melting pot” all-American diversity. His Italian-American heritage influenced his cooking and food education early on, but he was always curious about other cuisines.

Young and ambitious, Tramonto moved to New York in 1984 where he worked at legendary restaurants Tavern on the Green, Gotham Bar & Grill, and Aurora. Tramonto was lured to Chicago by Richard Melman in 1987 to work at his popular Lettuce Entertain You restaurants Avanzare and Scoozi!. He then went on to open and work at several other Lettuce Entertain You restaurants.

The chef worked at Charlie Trotter's for a year and then was asked by Bob Payton (of My Kinda Town, Ltd.) to transform the kitchen and cuisine at his award-winning country house hotel, Stapleford Park, in Leicestershire, England. Tramonto’s proudest moment was when he received the coveted Michelin Guide's Red "M" after only a year at Stapleford, a feat seldom accomplished by an American chef. During his time abroad, Tramonto worked and staged with some of the great Michelin-starred chefs of Europe including Michel Guérard, Pierre Gagnaire, Alain Chapel, Raymond Blanc, and Anton Mosimann.

Tramonto’s passion for food, distinctive culinary style, and his proven track record at home and abroad primed him for running his own restaurant. When he and his culinary partner, Gale Gand, opened Trio in 1993, the restaurant was an immediate success and earned the Chicago Tribune’s first four-star rating in six years. The two went on to open Brasserie T and eventually their flagship restaurant, Tru, in 1999. In 2005, Tramonto opened Osteria di Tramonto, Tramonto’s Steak & Seafood and RT Sushi Bar & Lounge in Wheeling, IL in the Westin Hotel.