Hotel News
New pastry chef aspires to bring dessert glory to Las Colinas hotel
A Dallas-Fort Worth hotel with a history of excellence in desserts has a new chef: Four Seasons Resort and Club Dallas at Las Colinas welcomes Yudith Bustos as their new Executive Pastry Chef.
According to a release, Bustos has worked for Four Seasons for more than a decade, most recently at Four Seasons Hotel Washington DC, and says she's looking forward to creating a new dessert program that will shine.
"Dreaming, designing, creating something from scratch — I’ve always been fascinated by how a few ingredients could come together into a delicious work of art," Bustos says.
Since her arrival in June, Bustos has already made an impact, designing innovative dessert menus for the Resort's signature restaurant Law, the bar and patio, Outlaw Taproom, and the seasonal poolside dining outlet Agave Pool & Bar.
She has also launched a new program of amenities served in-room, and has brought back the hotel's wedding cake operation with an upgrade and modernized approach.
"I enjoy making all types of desserts, but I really love making wedding cakes," she says. "I was taught, 'You can never make a mistake on wedding cake because they’re too important,' so my style became perfection."
She's also contributing dishes to the hotel's brunch program, which has recently relaunched after being shut down during the pandemic.
The hotel was home for 30 years to legendary pastry chef Randy Gehman, who earned many awards and inspired a generation of young pastry chefs before he retired in 2015 — including Bustos, who worked with Gehman one year when she came to the property to help during a Bryan Nelson event.
A release traces her history, from growing up in Costa Rica where her family were farmers, to working at a small pastry shop that inspired her to pursue it as a career.
She enrolled in culinary classes at Instituto Nationnal de Aprendizaje Culinary School and O’Sullivan Culinary School in San Jose, Costa Rica before beginning an internship at the Inter-Continental Hotel in San Jose.
She began working for Four Seasons in 2008, as the Pastry Chef de Partie at Four Seasons Resort Costa Rica at Peninsula Papagayo, before moving to Four Seasons Hotel Washington DC in 2013, where she worked her way up the ranks to Executive Pastry Chef in 2018.
In 2019, she participated in a global series of events celebrating Four Seasons staff in London, and also staged at Michelin-starred La Dame de Pic London.
In 2020, she was listed in USA Today as one of 10 female chefs elevating the DC food scene.
Chef Shirley Chung.Photo by Samantha Marie Photography
Chef Shirley Chung is known as the "Dumpling Queen of Los Angeles."Photo by Samantha Marie Photography