By Michael Nagrant

The last time Newcity published The Big Heat—a list of Chicago’s top food and drink influencers—in 2003, Charlie Trotter was one of the most popular chefs in America, he had two restaurants and was pretending to lead a raw foods revolution. If a chef made that list he probably only had one restaurant and it would have been a fine-dining venture. There was no room for a counter-service fish shack. But, these days we get some of our best food from trucks and most self-respecting chefs wouldn’t be caught dead rolling out white tablecloths. We wanted Rick Bayless opening a burger stand, not doing commercials for one. And with the economic downturn of a few years ago, we got our wish (much better than we could have dreamed—a local seasonal sandwich shop, Xoco, serving the silkiest bean-to-cup hot chocolate ever). The landscape these days is so different that forty of the fifty people on the 2003 list didn’t make this one. Two of them, may they rest in peace, Paul Wildermuth (Opera) and Abby Mandel (founder of Green City Market) have died.

Starting today, and continuing five days a week till we put out a special print issue of Newcity with the list on August 25, we’ll unveil this year’s list, beginning with #50 and working our way toward #1. We expect you’ll find some surprises.

#50 Charlie Trotter

#49 David Schneider

#48 Carrie Nahabedian

#47 David Friedman

#46 Robert and Sonat Birnecker

#45 Giuseppe Tentori

#44 Paula Haney

#43 Billy Lawless

#42 Joe Catterson

#41 Ben Schiller/Mike Ryan/Paul McGee/Brad Bolt

#40 Bruce Sherman

#39 Nick Lessins and Lydia Esparza

#38 Mike Cain

#37 Gary Wiviott

#36 Rob and Allison Levitt

#35 Tony Mantuano

#34 Jimmy Bannos

#33 Mark Payne and Andy Pates

#32 Jeff and Tony Dreyfuss

#31  Michael, Nick and Simon Floyd

#30 Chuck Templeton

#29 Michael Carlson

#28 Eddie Lakin

#27 Curtis Duffy

#26 Bill Kim

#25 Louis John and Leslie Slagel

#24 Greg Gunthorp

#23 Paul Virant

#22 Alpana Singh

#21 Ken Raskin

#20 Michael Kornick

#19 Mindy Segal

#18 Matt Maroni

#17 Phillip Foss

#16 Adam Seger

#15 Bruce Finkelman

#14 Brendan Sodikoff

#13 Matt Maloney and Mike Evans

#12 Nick Kokonas

#11 Art Smith

#10 Doug Sohn

#9 Ellen Malloy

 #8 Scott Harris

#7 Graham Elliot

#6 Rob Katz and Kevin Boehm

#5 Paul Kahan, Donald Madia, Eduard Seitan, Terry Alexander

#4 Rich Melman

#3 Grant Achatz

#2 Stephanie Izard

#1 Rick Bayless