To decide this category, we used to weigh a range of variables from food quality to presentation to price. No more. Now the Scene just holds a contest—Iron Fork—in which the best chefs we can find battle it out over a secret ingredient to determine kitchen supremacy. This spring, tayst's chef/owner Barlow took home the Golden Fork after besting the competition in Battle Asparagus. With his finger on the pulse of the restaurant industry and the city's first certification from the Green Restaurant Association, Barlow is a trendsetter in local foods and sustainable business, known as much for his playful Krispy Kreme bread pudding as for his dead-serious efforts to operate an environmentally responsible enterprise. Carrington Fox
