Cameron seems obsessed with ingredients and fueled by exploring techniques. It’s not for the awards, this is why he cooks. Look no further than the fact that he's growing Aspergillus oryzae, known in English as koji, on grains for deeper umami. Koji is a filamentous fungus used in Chinese and other Asian cuisines.

The brown rice Cameron grew it on was used in making a six-month sesame miso. They've taken that sesame miso and made a play on hummus with a chickpea dip that you can't really call hummus. His level and his approach to food is much more complicated than a lot of your chefs, says Abbott's Grill chef/owner Kevin Reading.

Cameron’s dishes run from “mind-bending ingredients that people have never heard of to something comfortable,” he says. He points to a recent offering: Poulet Rouge chicken and dumplings. Granted, he used corn masa for the dumplings, and the stock included fresh, charred corncob husks. On top? Shaved Australian black truffle. “It was comforting and easy for people to understand, but it was a twist on what is classically served here in the Mid-Atlantic region,” he says.