Here they are, the winners of the first round of Eater Austin's Hottest Chef contest: Deegan McClung of Jeffrey's, Jodi Elliott of Foreign & Domestic, Shawn Cirkiel of Parkside/Backspace, Jon West of Barley Swine, Paul Qui of Uchiko, and Taff Mayberry of Olivia.
Now comes the hard part: narrowing those six down to two. In our first heat of round two, we've pitted Cirkiel, Qui and Mayberry against each other. Let the voting begin!