Huge congrats to chef Ari Taymor and his team at Alma for earning Bon Appetit's No. 1 spot for Best New Restaurant in America of 2013!

Chef Taymor has impressed top critics with his inventiveness, skill and his passion for personally sourcing produce so fresh, he says, "it's practically still alive." And much of that award-winning veg is picked only hours before it's served, right here at a private garden in Venice.

Remember Flower Ave's urban farmer Courtney Guerra? When we noticed her front-yard transformed from marathon sod to blooming beds of fava beans, snap peas, and edible lilies, we knew that something special was taking root.

Turned out, Guerra was no ordinary farmers' market grower, she was a professional cook and culinary gardener with top notch training at some of the finest restaurant establishments, including Melisse in Santa Monica and Meadowood in Napa Valley, and these veggies were being grown exclusively for Chef Taymor in Downtown L.A. Guerra also cooks at Alma once a week to keep her knife skills sharp.

 Bon Appetit's annual list of the "Hot 10" was narrowed down from 50 nominations by restaurant and drink editor Andrew Knowlton, who picked Alma as the best.

"It was while working as an unpaid stagiaire at La Chassagnette, a country restaurant with its own garden in Arles, France, that Taymor adopted the techniques that became the foundation of his cooking style (not to mention where he became enamored with the idea of having a farm)," Knowlton wrote.

[VIDEO] Meet Flower Ave Farmer Courtney Guerra