Amid the buzz around the fantastic work Scottish chefs are doing to transform the food culture in our country, it shouldn't be forgotten that there's a significant percentage of Scots high flyers in the London diaspora too.

Neil Borthwick, the Larbert-born head chef at the Merchant's Tavern in Spitalfields (the subject of a recent Herald Magazine cover story) is one; Ian Scaramuzza, the Glasgow-born head chef of Claude Bosi's two-star Hibiscus in Mayfair is another. Then there's James Petrie, formerly at Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck in Bray, now heading development at the two-star Ledbury in Notting Hill; Dundee-born Jeremy Lee at the helm of Quo Vadis in Soho; Edinburgh's Neil Rankin at the Smokehouse in Islington; Alan Murchison of Inverness as executive chef at the Michelin-starred l'Ortolan in Reading; and so it goes on.

Gordon Ramsay excepted, we don't hear much about these expat chefs or their cooking despite their lofty reputations south of the Border. In Scotland, we prefer - rightly, at least for now - to focus on indigenous talent and encourage chefs to remain here by creating the right environment for them to build up their business while simultaneously cultivating our culinary palates.

With such passionate cooking in evidence, from M-stars to gastropubs, plus the mentoring, apprenticeship schemes and scholarships in place, there's arguably less impetus now than previously for an ambitious young chef to flee to London to up his or her game.

Equally, though, I've noticed an alarming lack of interest in the Scottish foodie scene from south of the Border. None of the chefs I've met in London eat up here much. And apart from the occasional invitation to a Scots-based chef to appear on a network television cookery contest (Mark Greenaway, Stevie McLaughlin and Jacqueline O'Donnell in The Great British Menu), or to present a show (Tom Kitchin, Tony Singh), there's a general indifference coming from London about Scottish chefs and cooking.

Well, when was the last time there was a network television commission on a par with Nick Nairn's seminal Wild Harvest of 1996? Or a Scottish chef at a food festival south of the Border?

Had Scots cooking remained in the 1960s doldrums, that would be understandable. As things are, this apparent stand-off is as misplaced as it's mystifying.

That's why the appearance of young London-based chef Adam Handling at two major Scottish food festivals this year is such a breath of fresh air.

The 25-year-old from Dundee heads up a 22-strong team and after 18 months has taken the kitchen in the Caxton Grill in Westminster in a fresh direction. Handling, who left Lawside Academy at 15 to become the Gleneagles Hotel's first apprentice chef, was named the 2014 British Culinary Federation Chef of the Year in April.

He's also been listed as one of the "30 under 30" to watch in The Caterer & Hotelkeeper's 2013 Acorn Awards. He was a MasterChef finalist last year, and it was at his kitchen at Caxton Grill that the MasterChef 2014 finalists were filmed cooking under his instruction.

I can vouch for the inventiveness and brio of his modern-rustic cooking, which has Asian accents using fresh British and Scottish ingredients, such as Perthshire wagyu beef, Orkney scallops, Buccleuch beef and Gigha halibut. He uses on-trend techniques such as fermentations and pickles; seaweed and soya instead of butter and cream.

A three-beetroot amuse bouche demonstrates his attention to detail: candied beetroot cannelloni is filled with beetroot pannacotta and dusted with deep earthy beetroot powder. A lamb main two ways - juniper-cured neck and loin - with cockles, Romanesque and a delicious burnt cauliflower puree in a tart verjus sauce showed outstanding talent as well as ambition.

He's about to have a cookbook published and to launch his own range of crockery and artisan chocolate bars. He told me he was "desperate" to open a restaurant in Scotland and is keen to become part of the Federation of Scottish Chefs' Scottish Culinary Team to represent his country. When he comes to demonstrate his cooking at the Foodies Festival in Edinburgh next month, and the inaugural Eat, Drink, Discover Scottish regional food festival at Ingliston in September, he'll be the first London-based Scots chef to be invited up; he says it will be an honour for him.

It's possible the reason we don't see more of them in Scotland, or more Scots in London, is surely not just a matter of restricted budgets. Scottish cooking is as good as, if not miles better than, the metropolitan Michelin-starred and bib gourmand brigade.

So when he leaps on to the Scottish stage in August, here's hoping chef Handling starts a meaningful dialogue between London and Scotland that, like his cooking, lasts in the memory longer than the Scottish summer.