Tastemaker Awards

10 best chefs in Dallas 2018 demonstrate the city's culinary diversity

When in doubt, steak.

Photo courtesy of Bob's Steak & Chop House

We're only days away from our 2018 Tastemaker Awards, CultureMap's celebration of the best of food and drink in Dallas, where we're spotlighting all facets of the food and beverage industry, from bars to restaurants to bartenders to chefs.

This entry pays tribute to the top talent in the kitchen: the best chefs. These are the folks dreaming up new dishes and executing them with precision and consistency. They're all experienced, veteran chefs at the top of their game who are helping make Dallas the exciting culinary capital it is today.

We'll celebrate them and all of our other nominees at our Tastemaker Awards party April 19 at Sixty Five Hundred, with food tastings from chefs, and cocktails made with bourbon from sponsor Woodford Reserve. Tickets are on sale now for $55, with a portion of the proceeds benefitting Bonton Farms.

Here are the 10 best chefs for 2018:

Chris Patrick, Abacus
Patrick had big shoes to fill at Abacus, taking over a position occupied by the restaurant's former chef and owner. But Patrick stepped up and has helped maintain Abacus' global cuisine, as well as overseeing openings for White Tail Bistro, The Lounge at Abacus, and Hickory, three sibling concepts. He's a champion of local ingredients and cooked at the James Beard House in 2017.

Doug Pickering, Ferris Wheelers
Pickering has enjoyed a quick ascent from his previous corporate life in real estate and finance into the buzzy world of barbecue. First he did catering, then got his feet wet in the restaurant world at Deep Ellum bar Work. He's now living the glamorous life of a pitmaster and upping his BBQ game at Ferris Wheelers, where they're doing lunch and dinner seven days a week, and that's no picnic.

Eric Dreyer, Fearing's
The right-hand man to chef Dean Fearing, Dreyer's affiliation with the Ritz-Carlton dates back to 1999 when he worked at a property in California. He worked at a number of luxury hotels, including the Grand Hyatt DFW, before joining Fearing's in 2007. As chef de cuisine, he's helped the restaurant stay consistently excellent but also vibrant and vital. In 2013, Eater crowned him Dallas' Hottest Chef, and in 2014, he won the Tastemaker Award for Rising Star Chef.

Jeana Johnson, Mockingbird Diner
A native of Palestine, in East Texas, Johnson knows indigenous cuisine inside and out. She worked at restaurants such as Stephan Pyles and Smoke, before opening her ground-breaking taqueria Good 2 Go Taco and her innovative Vietnamese restaurant Mot Hai Ba. In 2018, she and restaurateur Jack Perkins opened Mockingbird Diner, a culinary homage to Dallas and Texas, where she's turning out letter-perfect versions of home-cooking classics such as chicken-fried steak.

Jeffrey Kollinger, Tillman's Roadhouse
Kollinger was (and still is) a caterer for more than 35 years, doing events for clients such as Pat and Emmitt Smith before acquiring this veteran Oak Cliff restaurant. They've managed to steady the course at this longtime staple in the historic Bishop Arts District, offering an inviting, relaxed atmosphere with well made food and cocktails.

Jon Stevens, Stock & Barrel
A California native, Stevens moved to Dallas in 2000 and worked with prototypical Dallas chefs such as Chris Ward and Avner Samuel before opening his own upscale casual restaurant, Stock & Barrel, in 2014. Four years later, he's opening Foxyco, a restaurant in Dallas' Design District with shared plates and dishes cooked over coal.

Michael Ehlert, The French Room
A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Ehlert worked at restaurants in Colorado including Jax Fish House, the restaurant of Top Chef winner Hosea Rosenberg; and in New York at the Brasserie and chef Daniel Boulud’s DBGB Kitchen & Bar. After moving to Dallas, he worked at The Chesterfield, Campo, Hibiscus, and the Front Room at Hotel Lumen, before joining The French Room right as it undertook a massive renovation, putting him in a high-profile spot.

Omar Flores, Whistle Britches
Critical acclaim follows chef Omar Flores wherever he cooks: First at Oak Cliff seafood restaurant Driftwood, then at Casa Rubia, his Spanish tapas restaurant at Trinity Groves, and now at Whistle Britches, his own restaurant in North Dallas with a Southern theme. Lots of people are doing fried chicken these days, but it's hard to beat his version — spicy and salty with a thin-but-crunchy crust.

Sean Merchant, Bob's Steak & Chop House
Merchant held tenures at concepts both big and small: from the Mira Vista Country Club to the Covey brewpub in Fort Worth, before joining Bob's Steak & Chop House, one of Dallas' consummate steakhouses. He's not only steering the ship, he's also become a kind of missionary for Dallas' favorite dish, with tutorials on kinds of cuts and how to cook them.

Tracy Miller, Local
If you want to talk about trailblazers, look no further than chef Tracy Miller. She opened Local in the historic Boyd Hotel building during a downtime in Deep Ellum in 2003. The neighborhood is now filled with restaurants and shops taking over cool historical buildings, while Miller has been quietly, consistently dishing out excellent modern American food for 15 years.

awards chefs bests tastemakers lists

Benedict News

West End Dallas breakfast favorite Ellen's makes sudden comeback

Ellen's

Ellen's Southern Kitchen will return

A beloved breakfast spot in downtown Dallas is making a surprise comeback: Ellen's Southern Kitchen, the all-day restaurant concept founded in Dallas in 2012, is reopening its original location in downtown's West End.

According to founder Joe Groves, the restaurant, located at 1790 N. Record St., will open in June, following a "temporary" closure that lasted nearly two years.

The restaurant will reopen with the same hours, menu, and down-to-earth personality, serving breakfast, brunch, and Southern comfort food such as chicken-fried steak, fried catfish, meatloaf, shrimp & grits, and macaroni & cheese.

"We're still going to be the same — but better," Groves says. "We've kept the same management team, and we're thrilled that some of our waiters and bartenders and familiar faces are coming back. We're not taking anything for granted."

Groves is a voluble sort who disappeared from public view, due to landlord lawsuits that have since been resolved.

"There were two years of silence, we didn't know if we were going to be able to reopen or not," he says.

Named in honor of Groves' mother, Ellen's made its debut in 2012 with a special focus on breakfast — pre-dating the explosion of breakfast-and-brunch concepts that have opened across DFW in recent years.

Opening at time when the West End was on the upswing, Ellen's drew tourists, conventioneers, and downtown residents, with its menu of steak & eggs, migas, huevos rancheros, and Ellen's omelet with spinach, bacon, strawberries, mushrooms, and bleu cheese, served with toast and hash browns.

Signature dishes include pancake pot pie, a layered creation with pancakes, maple cream sausage gravy, bacon, sausage, hash browns, scrambled eggs, and cheddar cheese; and benedicts in eight options including Cajun shrimp benedict and crab cake benedict.

They were open for lunch and dinner hours as well, with a full bar. Groves' mischievous charm earned a following of its own, with stunts like his fearless 2018 run-in with the NRA in which he advocated for gun regulations during the organization's convention.

Bolstered by their success in the West End, Groves and his partners Andrew Chooljian and Russell Mertz went into what Groves calls "aggressive expansion mode," opening locations in Casa Linda and Allen, with plans for more. Casa Linda remains open; Allen closed in 2023. (They also opened Jack Ruby's, a restaurant-bar in the West End, which is thriving.)

But their momentum was derailed when one of their main financiers hit a wall. They closed the West End location temporarily, but the New York-based landlord at the time locked them out, spurring a domino effect with their other landlords, as well.

The building at 1701 N. Market St. where Ellen's resides has since been acquired by Five Smooth Stones, the development company owned by Owen Hannay, a longtime proponent of the neighborhood. He's working with Groves and company to get it back open.

"I've known Joe for a long time, and feel like Ellen's has always been such a great draw for the West End," Hannay says. "We're delighted that it's reopening and that we're able to get it going so quickly."

Once Groves and his staff were able to get back inside the beloved location, they found a time capsule — a romantic concept but one that also called for updates to the furniture, AC, and kitchen gear.

"After a couple years away, those holes in the upholstery became more obvious, and some of the kitchen equipment needed to be replaced," he says.

Ellen's reopening will restore breakfast and brunch to the West End, and Groves says they also hope it will bring them back to where they started.

"We have a big hole to dig out of — we want every vendor and individual we still owe to be fully paid," he says. "Reopening finally gives us hope for that."

"Ellen is my mom, this is our home location, and I've always felt a personal connection to the West End," he says. "I want the legacy of Ellen's to continue."

openings downtown west end