Best of Boston

2007 Best Chef, Up-and-Coming

David Punch

Sometimes it just takes a little tweak to make food memorable. That roasted beet salad that’s on menus everywhere? At Ten Tables, Punch adds a drizzle of pumpkin seed oil. The roast chicken? He turns—nay, kicks—it up with cabbage, shell beans, and bacon. With a resume that includes stints at UpStairs on the Square and Rendezvous, this chef’s talent for making the ordinary extraordinary is serving him, and us, very well.

Ten Tables, 597 Centre St., Jamaica Plain, 617-524-8810, tentables.net