Drew Nieporent, one of America’s most respected and celebrated restaurateurs, is the founder of the Myriad Restaurant Group. Over the last 30 years he has opened 40 restaurants including three-star Bâtard, which won the 2015 James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant. Myriad also operates Tribeca Grill, Nobu NY, Nobu 57, and Nobu London with Robert De Niro.

Jonah Reider is a cook, event curator, and entrepreneur based in New York. While in his dorm at Columbia University, he started Pith, an immensely popular supper club. Pith — an attempt to integrate dining into the realms of art, music, design, and entertainment — has now grown into a brand of experimental sensory dining events and experiences.

Joshua David Stein is the former restaurant critic for the New York Observer, a contributor to the New York Times, New York Magazine and the Guardian. He is the author of Can I Eat That? a children's book about food and co-author of Food & Beer, with Daniel Burns and Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø. Both books are out from Phaidon.

Founder & Co-CEO of sweetgreen

Merrill is co-founder and president of Food52, the James Beard Award-winning site for all things kitchen and home. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Edible Brooklyn, and Body+Soul, among other publications. She attended Le Cordon Bleu in London and got her start in the food world as an intern at Cook’s Illustrated and working at Flour Bakery in Boston, MA, before collaborating with her Food52 co-founder Amanda Hesser on the Essential New York Times Cookbook.

Matt Duckor is a writer, editor, video producer, and photographer. Currently, he’s a senior editor at Epicurious, where he served as part of the brand relaunch team in February 2015. Before that he helped relaunch Bon Appétit, where he served as multimedia editor and made contributions to the brand's ASME and James Beard Award-winning print, digital, and tablet editions. His writing has also appeared in Condé Nast Traveler, Details, and Ambrosia, and AFAR.

David Feller is the founder and CEO of Yummly. Dave was an early member of Half.com and StumbleUpon (prior to their acquisitions by eBay). Additionally, Dave was GM of a $500M eBay business. Dave is an active mentor, advisor and investor with Mucker Capital, Philz Coffee, Culinary Institute of America, Proprly and more.

Jason Hammel is the chef and owner of Lula Cafe in Logan Square, Chicago. He is also the co-founder of the food education group Pilot Light Chefs.

Gavin Kaysen is the Chef/Owner of Spoon and Stable in Minneapolis, MN. Prior to opening the 2015 James Beard Award Finalist for Best New Restaurant, Kaysen served as Executive Chef of Michelin-starred Cafe Boulud in New York City. Kaysen also helps the next generation of young culinarians refine their skills as one of the founding mentors of the nonprofit ment'or BKB Foundation.

Molly Yeh recently moved from Brooklyn to a sugar beet farm on the North Dakota-Minnesota border, where she writes the food and travel blog, My Name Is Yeh. She was named Yahoo's 2014 Food Blogger of the Year and Saveur's 2015 Food Blogger of the Year. Her first book, Molly on the Range, will be released in October.

Owner of Alphabet City Beer Co. in the East Village and contributor to Thrillist and GQ. Certified Cicerone® and traveler.

CEO of Dinner Lab

Jenna is a food systems & policy consultant and host of Eating Matters, a food policy podcast broadcasting on Heritage Radio Network. Previously she worked as a corporate affairs consultant for Mars, Incorporated and also served as an adviser in NYC Mayor Bloomberg's Administration where she was responsible for operations oversight on efforts to increase healthy food access and affordability, fight food insecurity, and promote food system sustainability. She has a Master in Public Administration degree from New York University and culinary training from the International Culinary Center.

Paul co-founded Zingerman’s Delicatessen in 1982. It opened as 1300 square feet of combined restaurant and specialty food retail space, run solely by Paul, his partner Ari Weinzweig and two employees. The Zingerman’s Community of Businesses now has 23 partners, employs over 750 people and generates over $60 million in annual sales from nine separate businesses: Zingerman’s Delicatessen, Zingerman’s Mail Order, Zingerman’s Bakehouse, Zingerman’s Training Inc., Zingerman’s Coffee Company, Zingerman’s Roadhouse, Zingerman’s Candy Manufactory, Zingerman’s Creamery and Zingerman’s Cornman Farms.

James Beard Awards Winning food writer for the Chicago Reader.

Editor in Chief of Indulge, Miami's premier luxury lifestyle magazine. Previously Miami Herald food editor and St. Louis Post-Dispatch restaurant critic and beer columnist.

Widely considered a thought leader in the culinary world, Dave is the founder of the Museum of Food and Drink. He has been described as being on the culinary education "vanguard' with "tremendous influence" on CNN's The Next List, and has been widely featured on television, in print, and on the radio. Dave is an owner of Booker and Dax LLC, a culinary innovation company, and he is also the James Beard Award-winning author of Liquid Intelligence.

Josh Beckerman is an Entertainer who intertwines magic, mentalism, and comedy around the world. Josh also eats at restaurants all day and night. Josh is the Foodie Magician!

JULIA TURSHEN is a writer and recipe-developer. Her book, Small Victories, will be out in September, 2016. She lives in upstate New York with her wife, dogs, and cat.

Michel Nischan is a three-time James Beard Award winning chef with over 30 years of experience advocating for a more healthful, sustainable food system. He is Founder and CEO of Wholesome Wave, Co-Founder of the Chefs Action Network, as well as Founder and Partner with the late actor Paul Newman of the former Dressing Room Restaurant. Nischan has authored three cookbooks and has successfully influenced legislative language for the Federal Farm Bill, passed in 2014, supporting affordable access to healthy, locally grown fruits and vegetables for low income consumers.

Executive chef and co-owner of Miller Union, Atlanta. Author, "Root to Leaf, A Southern Chef Cooks Through the Seasons" Harper Wave 2015. Chefs Collaborative Atlanta Local Leader and Slow Food Atlanta Vice President.

With tenures at world-renowned restaurants such as The Little Nell in Aspen, CO and The French Laundry in Yountville, CA, Bobby Stuckey has cultivated wine programs and championed hospitality, garnering numerous accolades, including the James Beard Foundation's Outstanding Wine Service Award in 2000. With the vision of opening a neighborhood restaurant reminiscent of the Italian frascas they had visited in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Stuckey and his business partner, chef Lachlan Mackinnon Patterson opened their first restaurant, Frasca Food and Wine, in August 2004 in Boulder, CO. The same year, Stuckey also earned the Master Sommelier Diploma from the Court of Master Sommeliers. Today, Stuckey wears many hats with ownership in Frasca Food and Wine, Pizzeria Locale Boulder, Pizzeria Locale (fast casual spin-off restaurant, in partnership with Chipotle Mexican Grill), and Scarpetta Wines.

Jordana Rothman is a respected member of the national food writing community. Her first book, co-authored with chef Alex Stupak of New York's Empellón restaurants, was released in Fall of 2015 under Clarkson Potter. Tacos: Recipes + Provocations won a prestigious IACP award and was nominated for a James Beard Award in the Best Single Subject Cookbook category.

Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative journalist and author of Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, a #1 New York Times bestseller.

Kwame Onwuachi is the executive chef and co-owner of The Shaw Bijou. At 26 years old, he brings a fresh perspective to the Washington D.C. food arena with a multi-course tasting menu featuring refined, yet approachable fare. Every dish tells a story, narrating the life experiences that shaped Onwuachi as a chef, from growing up in the Bronx and finding a love for food helping with his mom’s catering business, to living in Nigeria with his grandfather, cooking for the Gulf Coast oil spill crews, selling candy on New York City subways to pay his way through the Culinary Institute of America, and traveling the world. A Top Chef season 13 participant, Onwuachi has established himself as one to watch.