When Luke Hayes-Alexander was 12, he asked his father to buy him a pig. The boy, then in Grade 7, had announced to his parents that he was going to become a chef and would teach himself the craft. He wanted part of his training to be in butchery. The family owned and operated a casual restaurant in downtown Kingston, which they opened when Luke was a toddler and named after him, and their only child had been helping in the kitchen since he was small. Rob Alexander was the head chef, and Carrie Hayes ran the front-of-house. Rob dutifully ordered a 15‑pound suckling pig from an abattoir and deposited it on the kitchen table. Then he offered to assist. Luke, armed with a carving knife, declined the help. He had examined anatomy drawings in books, and he wanted to discover the animal for himself.

He followed the lines of flesh, muscle and bone. There wasn’t much blood—the pig had been drained—and, anyway, he wasn’t squeamish. Knowing where to cut, and why, came naturally. Then and there, Luke decided that the way to demonstrate his respect for the creature was to use all of it in his cooking. Eating meat, he believed, wasn’t wrong, but leaving anything to waste was.

Now, six years after he carved his first pig, Luke Hayes-Alexander is executive chef of this tiny, exotic restaurant. He has devised everything from the decor to the menu, serving such fare as rabbit rillettes sided with pistachio purée, wild blueberries and preserved lemon-polenta shortbread; squash risotto with asiago, olives and crispy capers; rainbow trout with white beans and croquettes béarnaise.

Foodies, alerted by newspaper accounts and word of mouth in the blogosphere, have been converging from Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. Carrie, a petite 45-year-old with ringlets of orange hair, even hosted a couple from Brooklyn who, hearing of her son’s cuisine, flew to Pearson, drove to Kingston, ate, slept over and then returned home. Over the past few years on Chowhound, the ardent foodie Web site, diners have been chronicling his progression as a chef in enthusiastic strings of conversation. “Best meal I’ve had in years,” one Chowhounder posted. “The dishes were intriguing, inventive and humorous.” Another, after first wondering if the two-hour drive to Kingston would be worth it, ended up raving about the food.

What kind of teen is this?