Where: Salare, Seattle 2404 NE 65th St.; 206-556-2192; salarerestaurant.com

Why Jordan is amazing: The menu at Salare represents the chef’s outstanding and diverse training, from salumi-making in Italy to working the line at Per Se in New York City and cooking over live fire at Seattle’s Bar Sajor. His superb sweetbreads with collard greens merge his fine-dining experience with his Southern roots.

Born: St. Petersburg, FL, 1980

Education: Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, Orlando, FL

Résumé: Bar Sajor, Sitka & Spruce, Seattle; Lincoln, Per Se, NYC; The Herbfarm, Woodinville, WA; The French Laundry, Yountville, CA

Signature dish: Black Cod Rundown. This refined take on "rundown" (a traditional, homey Jamaican fish stew) honors Northwest ingredients like local cod, yet the coconut milk and plantains evoke Afro-Caribbean and Southern American cuisine. "It’s not very often you see plantains at fine-dining establishments."

First restaurant job: Server at the restaurant chain Bennigan’s

How he got into cooking: "It was a combination of things. My family, we always cooked, we always did things around food: big Sunday dinners, cookouts with the family. I’m from the South—we would do it up Southern style."

Where the name of the restaurant came from: Jordan stayed with ninth-generation salami makers in Italy when he was studying charcuterie there; "salare" means to salt the meat to cure it.

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