Chef's Choice

Put your hands together for the 10 best chefs in Dallas

Texas Akaushi Wagyu rib eye from Flora Street Cafe.

Photo courtesy of Flora Street

We're only a week away from the 2017 CultureMap Tastemaker Awards, our annual event honoring the best in local food and drink. As part of our run-up, we've elected nominees in all categories of food and beverage, from best chefs to the best restaurant in Dallas-Fort Worth.

We'll toast them at a party on April 20 from 7-10 pm at Sixty Five Hundred, with tastings and awards, emceed by Texas celebrity chef Tim Love. Tickets are on sale now.

We've profiled the candidates for Rising Star Chef, Best Neighborhood Restaurant, Best Bars, Best Bartenders, Best Wine Program, the top pastry chefs, and the restaurants with the best fried chicken.

Now we move on to one of the biggest categories of all: best chef.

Angela Hernandez, Top Knot
A native of Austin, Hernandez joined the Uchi family in 2014 to work at Uchiko in Austin before coming to Dallas in 2016 to open Top Knot, the whimsical spot atop Uchi Dallas. A graduate of the Texas Culinary Academy, she worked for six years in New York including at Allen & Delancey and Corton, and she also worked at Flores, and at The Bazaar by Chef Jose Andres, both in Los Angeles.

Bruno Davaillon, Bullion
A native of the Loire Valley in France, Bruno Davaillon came to Dallas in 2010 to take on the post of chef at the venerable Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek. Prior to Dallas, he was executive chef at Alain Ducasse's Mix at THE hotel at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Under his five-year leadership, Mix was awarded a Michelin star in both 2008 and 2009. Davaillon began cooking at age 16 and has cooked in some of the world's most legendary restaurants, such as Restaurant Lasserre, a temple of classic French gastronomy near the Champs-Élysées. He'll open a new restaurant, Bullion, in downtown Dallas in 2017.

Dean Fearing, Fearing's Restaurant
Charismatic Dean Fearing is one of the founders of Southwestern cuisine and one of Dallas' most beloved chefs. He helped make the Mansion on Turtle Creek a culinary destination before leaving to found Fearing's Restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton hotel. He also authored the 2014 cookbook The Texas Food Bible. He's had countless features in national and international press and numerous TV cooking shows. He was recognized as a "Pioneer of American Cuisine" by his alma mater the Culinary Institute of America, and was presented with the Silver Spoon Award for sterling performance by Food Arts.

Julian Barsotti, Nonna, Carbone's, Sprezza
The current poster boy in Dallas for Italian food, Barsotti comes from a cooking family. His mother owns the catering operation Food Company, and his grandmother's family owns restaurants in New Jersey. He cooked at Oliveto in California before opening Nonna in Dallas in 2006. He's since followed that up with Italian-American restaurant Carbone's, which he opened in 2012, and Sprezza, a Roman-themed restaurant that opened in 2016.

Kirstyn Brewer, 80/20 Hospitality
Brewer is a returning nominee; in fact, she won in 2016 for Best Rising Star Chef. Her resume includes The Bazaar by Jose Andreas in Beverly Hills, where she worked with Top Chef Michael Voltaggio, and Consilient Restaurants' Westside Tavern in Los Angeles. Her employ with Consilient brought her to Dallas. She first worked at Hibiscus before moving to Victor Tangos, where she was executive chef for three years. She left in 2016 to open a still-to-come American/Chinese restaurant in the old Remedy space on Greenville Avenue.

Matt Balke, Bolsa
A native of Texas, Balke is an exceptionally well-rounded chef who graduated from Texas Tech with degrees in business marketing and hotel restaurant management before moving on to the Culinary Institute of America, where he graduated as salutatorian in 2007. He worked at York Street, then two years at Bolsa and Bolsa Mercado, The Rustic in Dallas, and Smoke in Plano, before returning to rule the roost at Bolsa again.

Matt Hoa, Ten Ramen
A native of California, Hoa comes from a restaurant family, and is part of the "Teach" family of restaurants, including his tenure at Tei An, the noodle restaurant at One Arts Plaza. He began to attract attention as executive chef at Ten Ramen, whose intimate confines provide a showcase for the creative labors and exciting action of the chef team. Hoa is part of the opening team at the new offshoot at the Shacks complex in The Colony.

Matt McCallister, FT33, Filament
After cooking in kitchens across the country, Arizona native Matt McCallister found his home in Dallas at FT33, his first solo venture, which made waves on a national scale, including a spot on the 2013 Top 50 New Restaurant list from Bon Appétit, and a 2014 Food & Wine Best New Chef nod. He's since opened Filament, a more casual restaurant in Deep Ellum. He favors the rubble-on-the-plate look and is famous for his foraging expeditions.

Michael Ehlert, The French Room
A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Ehlert began his cooking career at Colorado restaurants such as Boulder Cafe and 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. In Dallas, he's worked at The Chesterfield, Campo, Hibiscus, and the Front Room at Hotel Lumen.

Stephan Pyles, Stampede 66, Flora Street Cafe
A fifth-generation West Texan born into a restaurant family, Stephan Pyles has led an amazing life of restaurants, travel, education, and charity. Prolific and creative, he's launched more than a dozen restaurants, from his ground-breaking Routh Street Cafe to the iconic Star Canyon to his eponymous restaurant on Ross Avenue to his latest stunner, Flora Street Cafe. He's produced and starred on TV cooking shows, published cookbooks, and won a James Beard Award, an accomplishment few Dallasites have achieved.

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Flair News

TGI Fridays files for bankruptcy, all 6 Dallas locations now closed

TGI Fridays

Restaurant chain TGI Fridays filed for bankruptcy protection on November 2, saying it is looking for ways to “ensure the long-term viability” of the casual dining brand after closing many of its branches in 2024.

The Dallas-based company's Chapter 11 filing in a Texas federal court accelerates a gradual decline for an iconic chain that was once near the center of American pop culture but has seen its customer base dwindle as tastes changed.

TGI Fridays executive chairman Rohit Manocha said in a statement that the challenges were a result of COVID-19.

"The next steps announced today are difficult but necessary actions to protect the best interests of our stakeholders, including our domestic and international franchisees and our valued team members around the world," Manocha said. "The primary driver of our financial challenges resulted from COVID-19 and our capital structure. This restructuring will allow our go-forward restaurants to proceed with an optimized corporate infrastructure that enables them to reach their full potential."

Until recently, Dallas-Fort Worth had 11 locations including five at DFW Airport. Those airport locations are the only ones still open. The remaining six are all now closed — some closures very recent, most after being in business for a decade or more: 4951 Belt Line Rd. in Addison; 311 N. Clark St. in Cedar Hill, southwest of Dallas; 3700 Towne Crossing Blvd. in Mesquite; and 220 Cornflower Dr. at Firewheel Town Center in Garland.

A Plano location at 2444 Preston Rd. closed in 2022 and is now home to Rise Souffle, while the flagship in Dallas' West End at 1713 Market St. closed in 2020 after 32 years.

Privately owned by TriArtisan Capital Advisors, TGI Fridays has been a beloved dining destination since its inaugural bar opened in Manhattan in 1965. It expanded over the following decades to become a ubiquitous suburban gathering spot known for its ribs, potato skins topped with cheese and bacon, and a decor bedecked with red stripes and Tiffany-style lamps.

The company has boasted that its bartenders trained Tom Cruise for his role in the 1988 film Cocktail, while its serving staff's button-filled uniforms, meant to evoke a fun atmosphere, were later parodied in the 1999 satire Office Space, starring Jennifer Aniston.

Its empire peaked in 2008 with 601 restaurants in the U.S. and a $2 billion business, according to Kevin Schimpf, director of industry research at Technomic. Its sales in the U.S. were $728 million in 2023, down 15% from the prior year, according to Technomic.

It now counts 163 restaurants in the U.S., down from 269 last year and 213 from a week ago. It closed 36 in January and dozens more in the past week. TGI Fridays Inc. said it only owns and operates 39 restaurants in the U.S, a fraction of the 461 TGI Fridays-branded restaurants around the world.

A separate entity, TGI Fridays Franchisor, owns the intellectual property and has franchised the brand to 56 independent owners in 41 countries. Those are independently owned and not part of the Chapter 11 process, and remain open.

A United Kingdom-based franchisee, Hostmore, also sought debt protection in September and abruptly closed locations throughout that country after a failed takeover deal to acquire TGI Fridays.

During the pandemic TGI Fridays made an effort to expand into the delivery market by making itself a hub for ghost kitchens, which have no storefront and only prepare food for delivery. Among the major creditors owed money by TGI Fridays is the delivery service DoorDash, according to Saturday's bankruptcy court filings.

Sit-down chain restaurants more broadly have faced challenges in recent years as diners choose to get food delivered or visit upscale fast-food chains like Chipotle and Shake Shack. In September a U.S. bankruptcy judge approved a reorganization plan for the seafood chain Red Lobster after years of mounting losses. Italian American food chain Buca di Beppo filed for bankruptcy protection in August. PAnother iconic U.S. sit-down restaurant, Denny's, announced in October that it is closing 150 of its lowest-performing restaurants in an effort to turn around the brand’s flagging sales. Wendy’s is also closing up to 140 restaurants, according to a statement from The Wendy's Co. on October 31.