Vancouver’s restaurants are blessed with gifted chefs, many of whom were once newcomers to Canada. Some have been enriching our culinary scene for decades now. But lately there’s also been an influx of serious talent, and not just big guns like Daniel Boulud and Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Rather, it’s an exciting, younger, under-the-radar crew—three chefs and a bartender—that’s sparking our interest.

Since arriving last April, British chef Neil Taylor has made the Italian restaurant Cibo Trattoria (900 Seymour Street) a prime draw. Taylor, now 28, began cooking at 17. By 22 he was working at London’s River Café, where Jamie Oliver famously surfaced, and then at Catalina and the Tilbury in Sydney, all Italian-focused eateries.

Vancouver’s tightly knit chefs’ community and its sharing of food sources surprised Taylor, who supports the fresh-local-organic-sustainable-seasonal mantra. He goes even further, using fresh fish only, whereas most Vancouver chefs are happy with the quality of the flash-frozen-at-sea fish that’s available.

At the River Café, Taylor used the finest possible ingredients, and he’s pleased with what’s available here. “The mushrooms are as good as the incredible ones from Scotland,” he says, praising local supplier Mikuni Wild Harvest, along with “Biovia’s great produce, and Two Rivers’ specialty meat”. He adds, “It’s challenging to cook seasonally in winter, but in summer it’s 90 percent organic and local.”

Like Taylor, chef Peter Robertson of Raincity Grill (1193 Denman Street) is driven by what’s fresh, what’s seasonal, and especially what’s local. Sourcing provisions for his seasonal 100-mile menus and single-ingredient-focused prix fixes is all-consuming. Originally from Australia, he worked at Sydney’s much-awarded Bilson’s. Robertson notes that sourcing ingredients in Vancouver is more challenging than it is in Australia, where “the seasons”¦are more drawn out. Winter is short, so there’s a bigger spectrum of products.”

When the now 28-year-old Robertson travelled to Europe to intern in several food-forward restaurants, he met plenty of Canadians. “They stood out as being very talented,” he says. “It became apparent that some of the world’s most progressive and exciting cuisine is currently coming out of Vancouver.” Soon he was working at C Restaurant as sous-chef. “I never butchered so much salmon in my life. I was horrified,” he says, laughing. “Then came the 55-pound halibut!” A year later, he was promoted to restaurant chef at C’s sister restaurant Raincity Grill.

Thirty-year-old American Tyrell Brandvold, one of Vancouver’s latest culinary imports, mans the stoves at Gastown’s Revel Room (238 Abbott Street). He’s fresh from Seattle’s seminal Flying Fish restaurant (a local leader in green cuisine); prior to that he was at Kaikodo on Hawaii’s Big Island, which is celebrated for its innovative island plantation cooking.

Revel’s current menu boasts easy comfort dishes like lingcod tacos, shiitake and winter squash tempura, and grilled Berkshire pork chops. Brandvold tries to nail the best provisions taking this casual room a step up. “[In the future] look for more Southeast Asian ingredients and cooking methods, and more fish,” he says.

It was a bit of luck for Lumière and db Bistro Moderne (2551 West Broadway) to land Cameron Bogue, a talented bar star with a serious rep. Born in Portland, Oregon, 28-year-old dual citizen Bogue says he “tried college for about two minutes before deciding I really wanted to ski”. Several seasons at Whistler working at local nightspots were followed by stints in Toronto bartending and instructing. Next up: five years in Las Vegas, where his expertise won him a contract travelling the U.S. as a vodka brand’s cocktail consultant.

B.C.’s dearth of spirits is a sore point with Bogue. “There is so much choice in the U.S.,” he says. He’s upped the ante with handcrafted infusions and syrups. “One day, [Daniel] Boulud hovered over me when he found me cooking syrups. He asked for my recipes,” Bogue says, laughing.

How did these talented young chefs end up here? Taylor was tipped to the job by a friend of a Vancouver chef, while Robertson and his wife came here on holiday a few years ago and then chose to move here for the active lifestyle. Brandvold married a Canadian, and Bogue arrived by accident. Really. He came here to recuperate at a friend’s place after a nasty motorcycle crash in Mexico.

While it’s taken a while for all four to get used to new ingredients, they’ve expanded their horizons—and ours—deliciously.