
We are a week away from the CultureMap Tastemaker Awards, our yearly culinary celebration of the finest in Dallas-Fort Value food items and consume.

The Tastemaker Awards spotlights the top rated talent in Dallas-Fort Worth’s cafe and bar communities, as established by their peers.

We are midway as a result of our specific editorial collection, where by we honor every of the nominees. We’ve now compensated tribute to the 10 Very best Bars, and we’ve also released our bracket vote for Fort Worth’s Ideal New Restaurant, the place you get to aid determine who will be the winner. (Click right here to see who’s profitable so much and cast your vote.)

Now we appear to the rock stars of the kitchen: Fort Worth’s prime cooks for 2021, and it truly is a deliciously assorted lineup, from veteran names to newcomers, from fine eating to BBQ, with the issue in typical remaining their pursuit of excellence.

Who will acquire? Come across out at the Tastemaker Awards party on August 19 at Vogue Field Gallery, the place we’ll dine on bites from nominated places to eat although emcee CJ Starr reveals the winners. Get tickets here.

Below are the nine most effective chefs for 2021:
Felipe Armenta – Towne Grill

Armenta is a return nominee, obtaining been nominated for Very best Chef in 2020, and additional than deserving. He’s a single of Fort Worth’s prolific restaurateurs, with a portfolio of eateries that consists of The Tavern, Pacific Desk, Maria’s Mexican Kitchen area (which attained a Tastemaker nomination this calendar year for Best New Restaurant), and the a short while ago opened Towne Grill, and seems to be expanding each and every working day.
Chetra Chau – Chetra’s Kitchen

Chau had virtually 20 several years in the sector, from catering to to company gigs to homestyle cooking to good eating, before he opened this unassuming but hugely personalized gem in Bedford. It might not seem like significantly from the outside the house, but Chau is serving outstanding, world-trotting food. Even day-to-day goods get his chef-impressed touch: His BLT comes with an around-straightforward egg and Korean barbecue sauce and his tacos are riffs on beef Wellington and Philly cheesesteaks.
Mistee Moon – Nood Food items

Solitary mom with wildly coloured hair and tattoos has had her very own catering enterprise for 20 many years, but soon after dropping her “day career” owing to the pandemic, she ramped it up, building her foods out there to the community with weekly food packages, which often function a wholesome and/or Asian twist. She’s also an attained baker who would make wonderful cakes.
Jett Mora – Cafe Modern

Los Angeles native began doing work for Wolfgang Puck Catering in 2011 in the company’s flagship Hollywood kitchen area, developing menus for weddings, distinctive occasions, corporate galas, and some of the country’s leading situations, which include the Oscars Governors Ball. He also served as government chef at Puck’s West Hollywood cafe Purple Seven, before cooking within Wolfgang’s Examination Kitchen, a culinary incubator. He moved to Fort Worthy of to guide the culinary staff at the Contemporary, which is variety of a big deal.
Grant Morgan – 97 West

Morgan started his career in his hometown Sedona at the renowned Heartline Cafe, and has worked in vacation resort cities like Las Vegas and Vail, Colorado, at luxury houses such as Park Hyatt Beaver Creek and Spa and Le Cirque at the Bellagio Lodge. He was lured to Dallas to operate at Lodge Zaza, then served as F&B director for Velvet Taco/FrontBurner, ahead of signing on as chef at 97 West, 1 of the buzziest openings in Fort Well worth and a Tastemaker nominee for Best New Cafe.
Denise Shavandy – American Revelry

A returning Tastemaker nominee (she was nominated for Best Chef in 2020), Shavandy gained fantastic acclaim through her five-calendar year stint at Cafe Contemporary, pursuing a vocation that involved eatZi’s, Central Current market, and The Pegasus. A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, she’s also been a culinary instructor, and gained on an episode of the Meals Community demonstrate Chopped. She lately signed on as govt chef at American Revelry, the major-notch American cafe in Burleson, exactly where her creations are now building waves.
Victor Villareal – La Onda

Villarreal is a return nominee, having been nominated for greatest chef the moment in advance of in 2019. He’s cooked in some of the top rated kitchens in Dallas-Fort Well worth, such as the Mansion on Turtle Creek, Clay Pigeon, Sera, and Grace, and just opened La Onda, a Latin-inspired seafood restaurant with raw and cooked seafood dishes, these kinds of as smoked clam & scallop ceviche and oysters on the half-shell. (La Onda was also nominated this yr for Most effective New Cafe, and has produced it to finalist standing.)
Derrick Walker – Smoke-A-Holics

Fort Value indigenous acquired his start out in the barbecue company by catering exclusive situations and hosting pop-ups. Walker’s barbecue is undeniably great, with brisket, sausage, rooster, and spare ribs – superior sufficient to have earned a Tastemaker nomination in 2020 for Ideal New Restaurant. But he elevates it further more by including a soul food twist, together with smoked oxtails with cheese grits and smoked and smothered chopped steak.
Patrick Whitfield – Ella B’s

Just after jogging a catering enterprise with his wife Patricia for additional than 12 several years, Whitfield opened Ella B’s, a elegant Southern and soul meals spot in Arlington, with a identify and menu encouraged by his grandmother, Ella B. Whitfield, that involves Cajun and lower-place Southern food stuff. It truly is kitty-corner to the Texas Stadium — fitting because Whitfield formerly cooked for Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys for two years. He’s also been a private chef to superstars and has his have line of barbecue sauces and spices.
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