RISING CHEFS 2007

Drew Belline's lightning-fast rise through the ranks at the Atlanta restaurants of Anne Quatrano and Clifford Harrison is testament to this young chef’s creativity, energy and talent. The 27-year-old Johnson and Wales-trained chef quickly rose to chef de cuisine, first at the prix-fixe, tasting-menu-only Quinones and now at Floataway Café, where he creates unpretentious dishes with peerless flavors on a daily-changing menu that has won accolades for all three chefs. The Atlanta native started his career in New York, setting his sights on working with his culinary heroes, first at Charlie Palmer’s Kitchen 22 and then at Tom Colicchio’s Craft, before returning to his roots and seeking out Quatrano and Harrison. Belline’s career choices have been driven by the desire to work with chefs who share his love of seasonality; regional, organic ingredients; and support of sustainability—an ethos that began in childhood, spending time on his family’s small farm and foraging in the Georgia woods. These days the busy chef still does his own foraging, taking treasures like muscadine grapes and mushrooms and incorporating them into dishes like hamachi crudo with muscadines, summer truffles and shallots with a muscadine vinegar sorbet.