The next five biggest Monterey County food stories of 2016.

Editor's note: Number #7 and #6 are relevant to this week's forthcoming Edible Complex column, so they are popped back at the top of the foodie news queue. They originally appeared here in late October.

A constellation of culinary stars from the area’s two best restaurants struck out to start their own spots, which contributed to a musical chairs of top pastry chefs and another of the biggest food stories of the year.

That’s the biggest Monterey County culinary story so far this year, in a year saturated with them, partly because it’s more like five major storylines wrapped into one, and partly because of the unearthly amount of talent tied up in it.

So that's #1 on the list that published earlier this month, "High Five: Monterey County’s biggest food-and-drink stories of 2016."

But there’s a lot more where that came from, hence this sequence of the next five biggest.

It packs in a lot of intrigue, and that's despite the fact it doesn’t include the big start out of the gate for Carmel-based El Jefe Tequila or the fact Alvarado Street Brewery and Joyce Winery transformed a rough-and-tumble industrial hood in Salinas into a taste destination.

Counting down from #10 to #6:

10 • Restaurant 1833 keeps making news.

OK, it's not exactly news 1833 is in the news. That's par for the course. But word that the huge and historic Stokes Adobe that houses it is up for sale (for a cool $3 million plus, though the restaurant isn't on the block) is big. With decorated chef Jason Franey departing (for his own yet-unnanounced project), it's also big news that the new menu is in great hands with new Exec Chef Mikey Adams. At the same time, Bernabe De Luna keeps reaffirming his wisdom as one of the area’s preeminent wine whisperers and Josh Perry, fresh off a championship at San Francisco's Negroni Week, has the new cocktail program humming. 

9 • Pacific's Edge gets reinvented. 

Chad Minton has been directing traffic in the kitchen at Hyatt Carmel Highlands for over two years now, but he's just starting to feel like his team has reached the starting line. (Here's the Halloween appropriate post I published about his background when he came on board.) There are many reasons for that—big ones. The most famous began with the start of the year, and is finally ready for dinner service: The buildout of a lofty al fresco deck overlooking the Pacific, in sync with a larger property-wide overhaul for Hyatt Highlands. More significant to Minton: He has a gifted nuclear kitchen in place to do fun and stylish fare that includes a new plant-based tasting menu, Sonoma duck in housemade molé and yellowfin tuna with tempura avocado in a pequillo pepper emulsion.

8 • Rise of Roux.

Named for its accomplished and appropriately named French-born chef Fabrice Roux (and now his partner in life and restaurants, Jennifer), Roux debuted late in 2015. Its success with pan-Spanish-French wine and fare like yucca fries, bubbling blood sausage-goat cheese indulgence and organic pork aumônière crispy pastry purses—in a comely but historically underachieving spot on Pilot Road—merit a place on the top 20 stories of the year. But the fact that they have a deal in place to bring some buzz to Crossroads Carmel in the form of a hip spot they call “nouveau Asian” with a stylish bar in the next few months, and a third place designed around countryside French comfort food in a Peninsula spot TBD make it a solid top 10 foodie plot development.

7 • In-N-Out opens in Seaside.

Funny how time can get stretchy like the cheese on a Double Double. It took around a decade for the iconic burger destination to open, now it seems like it’s been open a lot longer than six-and-a-half months. (With the secret menu knowledge to go with it.) Attentive readers will notice this is the only chain represented in this column, and the first to appear in this space in months. But that’s how big a deal it was to locals. When I wrote an April Fools piece in 2015 saying it had been tabled in favor of a Left-Handed-Whopper-focused Burger King, I got more bitterness and threats than in the rest of my career combined.

6 • Dunes Project gets approval.

I like how our reporter who follows Marina madness, David Schmalz, put it earlier this year: “Perhaps never before in human history has a 4-acre parcel—one that's across from a big box store shopping center—received so much scrutiny.” But as he detailed in Oct. 20's Food + Drink, the complex of fast-casual chain restaurants is just a few weeks from debuting. That’s earthshaking news for a food desert whose residents, many of them CSU Monterey Bay students, had to get on the freeway for food previously. Despite the absence of locally owned spots, it still presents an impressive upgrade for the 500+ people who work the Dunes’ stores like REI and Target and Marina in general: Blaze Pizza, Menchies, Teriyaki Madness, Deli Delicious, Starbucks and Chipotle—all scheduled to open by Black Friday.