Best Unsung Chef

Chefs are mostly unappreciated: trapped in hot kitchens for most of their careers, putting in too many hours, always juggling creativity with cost. But if, as nineteenth-century French writer Grimod de la Reyniere believed, a kitchen "is a country in which there are always discoveries to be made," then Kansas City's greatest chefs are the ones charting new territory. Only a handful of high-profile chefs (like Michael Smith and Debbie Gold, the publicity-savvy team formerly at the American Restaurant) get any press. Ali Shiraz, who has overseen his namesake restaurant on Southwest Boulevard for nine years, isn't a culinary school graduate. But he's paid his dues by working in kitchens for all of his adult life. "People forget," says food writer Lou Jane Temple, "that Ali has introduced so many unexpected dishes to Kansas City -- like his tandoori sea bass." Shiraz, whose restaurant tweaks Indian, Middle Eastern and American traditions, laughs at the idea of being unsung. "Not every chef gets to own his own restaurant," he says. "And when your customers love you, that's the best praise."