led GQ 's restaurant critic, Alan Richman, in July 2011, to call out San Francisco as the most exciting dining scene in the country and Kinch as its central figure. In December, the same magazine named Kinch its chef of the year. To Kinch, the attention is both flattering and bemusing. "It's been fun, and I've enjoyed it," he says, "though I'm almost embarrassed by it." But to his peers and protgs, the recognition has been a long time coming. "David Kinch is a guru to a younger generation," says Teague Moriarty, of Sons & Daughters in San Francisco. "In everything we do here, we owe our gratitude to him." Syhabout, who served as Kinch's chef de cuisine -- and also as his assistant on Iron Chef -- before earning a Michelin star for his own restaurant, Commis, says, "It may sound like a bold statement, but when you think of all the people who have come through his kitchen, and the way his style has spread to other restaurants, David Kinch has done more than any chef since Alice Waters to reshape California cuisine." There is, of course, no matching the extent of Waters's impact, its ripples having spread from the White House garden to school cafeterias across the country. And like every sentient chef in the country, Kinch acknowledges his debt to Waters. "Anybody who has put the time and resources into procuring the quality of ingredients that she has -- how can you not have deep respect