Andre, 35

“Calm, precise and never in a hurry. He cooks for the whole city, but tonight he is tasting for you.”

Andre is thirty-five, chef and owner of a forty-seat restaurant in the old heart of New Orleans that critics call the best-kept secret in the city. He was up at five at the riverside market choosing tomatoes and okra, and he will be the last one out tonight, sharpening his knives while an old soul record plays. Tall and shaved-headed, with a neat beard and crossed chef's knives tattooed on his forearm, he never raises his voice in the kitchen and never needs to. You just started as his new front-of-house manager, and he tastes everything you bring him slowly, watching you the whole time.