Culinary Arts

The City of Ate Interview: Grape Sous Chef Danyele McPherson on Life as Luscher's No. 2

The Grape's sous chef, Danyele McPherson, sat down with us last week to chat about the life as a sous. Let's just jump right in. How did you initially get into cooking? Well, I went to normal college - got a degree at North Carolina at Chapel Hill and worked in offices full time, in a cube. Cube ... More >>

Conquering Culinary Challenges

Pigs & Swigs

You Can Barbecue It ...

Viking: A Little Lesson in How the Other Half Cooks

Woman, where's my meatloaf?​I don't own any kind of Viking appliance. But if I did, now I know what I would do with it. I didn't realize that the "Experience the Viking Difference" cooking class at the Viking Cooking school referred to the difference a Viking appliance can make in a cook's li ... More >>

Stephan Pyles Thanksgiving Cooking Class: You'll Never Want Another Butterball

Stephan Pyles​Among other things, the Thanksgiving cooking class at Stephan Pyles taught me that the main things I know about journalism are wrong. I had a journalism professor open his class with, "You think you're going to be happy? You're not. You think this career is going to be easy? I ... More >>

Acing the Cheese Course at Central Market

Editor's Note: Since we're not especially scholastic at City of Ate, we recruited our intern Brooke Nottingham (who's probably a whiz with a highlighter and page marker flags) to attend a few local cooking classes. Her occasional series of reports begins today with a cheese class at Central Market. ... More >>

Scott Romano: Going Whole Hog
At a Downtown Jewel

Photo by Robert BostickScott Romano​Since the Observer recently named Charlie Palmer at The Joule the city's Best Fancy Restaurant in this year's Best of Dallas issue, we thought now would be a good time to get a look at the man behind the kitchen, executive chef Scott Romano. Like many of th ... More >>

Turkish Delights: Dallas Cooks Get Schooled
In Food and Culture

Photo by Hanna RaskinNevin Gezgin teaches Dallasites how to prepare Turkish dishes.​Students enrolled in the Turkish American Women Association's Saturday afternoon cooking classes in Richardson learn as much about cross-cultural dialogue as the right way to roll dolmas. Trying to determine h ... More >>

Craft's Jeff Harris: A Chef you Can Bank On

Photos by Robert BostickCraft's Jeff Harris​(This is the first part of a three-part look at Jeff Harris, executive chef at Craft. Tune in tomorrow for a Q&A with Harris and Friday as he demonstrates how to prepare one of the restaurant's dishes.) Jeff Harris was raised in a small town in East ... More >>

Molecular Gastronomy Finally Makes Quantaum Leap to Dallas

Hey, grandpa, what's for supper?​As a remarkable number of press releases this month have pointed out, molecular gastronomy has made its way to Dallas. Stephen Pyles, who "detests the words" molecular gastronomy, is planning to trot out a few mad science techniques for a new tasting menu debut ... More >>

Back To School: Hungry Minds At Le Cordon Bleu

​Many kids and young adults are heading back to school right now. Some lucky stiffs, however, will trade cracking books for grilling, baking, sautéing and flambéing. Ever wonder what it's like? We have. Turns out, culinary school's lighter on the Gordon Ramsay-style discipline than you'd th ... More >>

Argh Argh Yum

10 Questions: James Tidwell Of Four Seasons

He was the 100th American wine professional to earn the title of Master Sommelier, but that's not the only thing Tidwell can be proud of.After graduating from LSU with a degree in international trade and finance, this son of a small town preacher set off for culinary school at the prestigious Culina ... More >>

Food For Thought 5.13.09

"Restaurants should want to promote the farmers they support, but listing every farm for every ingredient (e.g., 'Eagle Rock Farm cilantro,' 'Skogly Fields butter beans') is unnecessary and, in the end, tedious." (Andrew Knowlton, writing in Bon Appetit, in response to the question of whether the lo ... More >>

10 Questions: Ryan Carbery

Patrick MichelsThe sous chef for David Gilbert's new venture, Lazare, has a cooking history extending back four generations.How's that? Well, Carbery's family owns nine restaurants in the St. Louis area, his uncle is a chef in Beverly Hills--he essentially grew up in professional kitchens, hauling b ... More >>

10 Questions: Our Favorite Answers Thus Far

Who knew Megan Henderson liked to suck down whipped cream, straight from the can?We began the 10 Questions series early in the new year, so it seems like a good time to pause and look back.Over the past few months, we've interviewed some interesting characters, including chefs, waiters, managers, ba ... More >>

10 Questions: Russell Hodges

Not Russell, of course. But this is how he chooses to illustrate his Facebook page...He is responsible, indirectly, for the cooking in many of the city's restaurants. That's right--Hodges is one of those teaching chefs. Currently at the AIMS Academy and in the process of advancing his academi ... More >>

Toque In Hand

Want to help a good thing get even better?We recently wrote about the phenomenal lunches and dinners provided by aspiring chefs of El Centro College's culinary arts program. Still, the school's kitchen could use a little help. And it's getting it from a few of its famous friends.From 4 to 7 p.m., M ... More >>

Of Mansions And Men

This guy left the Mansion's kitchen. Will it fail as a result?On Friday, the Mansion's PR rep made the rounds by phone to confirm that rumors rebuffed earlier in the week were true--chef John Tesar was out the door to "pursue other opportunities."Stephanie Hutson, the suddenly harried spokesperson, ... More >>

Move Over, Ex-President Bush. Kent Rathbun's Moving a "Blue Plate Kitchen" Into Preston Center.

Earlier today, Unfair Park learned that chef Kent Rathbun would be opening a new restaurant in Preston Center, next door to Shannon Wynne's Flying Fish in the space formerly occupied by Carrabba's, among others. I called Rathbun's publicist Ariana Hajibashi-Martin to confirm, and she was very noncom ... More >>

Insert Lame Puck Pun Here

We here at City of Ate don't consider celebrity chefs swoon-worthy. MotoGP riders yes, chefs--hell, line cooks do the work. And when they appoint one of their protoges to their name...

Zagat's Great News for Fearing

Dean Fearing, who clearly needs to work on his knife skills Dean Fearing's eatery in the Ritz-Carlton has been the recipient of myriad kudos from the likes of Frank Bruni in The New York Times (who called it "overwhelming," but in a good way) to Esquire, which, couple years back, hailed it as its ... More >>

Burning Question: Which Ingredients Do Chefs Hate To Work With?

How would you like to slice into these everyday? Lobsters are easy. We mean that in a culinary sense. Bind up the pincers, drop them in water and commence to melting some butter. Likewise steak: a dash of salt, another of pepper and a crackling grill—that’s all there is to it, pretty much. I ... More >>

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Another Dallas Grub Rag

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Spice things up with ZestFest

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Give Peace and Peppers a Chance

Chili cooks score one for multilateralism

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Can you really learn to cook at a cooking class?

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Fire in the Bowl

Your stomach will hate you in the morning

She's Gotta Serve It

Dallas dining is largely controlled by men. Seven women are trying to change that.

Cam Bam

Do chefs watch cooking shows?

Naked Ambition

Jamie Oliver shows his twist at Central Market

Ronco Busting

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Cook Out

Do chefs really prepare your meals?

Best Place to Buy Kitchen Gadgets as Seen on TV

Sur La Table

Skipping School

Top chefs can spend 30 grand on school or just work their way up

Something about Stephan

After 25 years in Dallas' restaurant jungle, Stephan Pyles has come out respected and rich. How does he stay so clean?

High Spoons

Bare breasts, a bowl of red, and bad blood among the chili brethren in the Big Bend. Texas doesn't get any better.

Cooking Up a Storm

Temperamental Dallas chef Avner Samuel is a genius in the kitchen, but he may have burned the one thing that matters most--his bridges

Joey's wobbles

But it doesn't fall down

Taking a stand

Rebellious Chef Danielle Custer creates a risky menu for Laurels

Hot Dish

Bread and Circuses

When food legend Julia Child came to Texas spreading her gospel of good eating, no one was spared. Not even Big Tex

Hot Dish