We’re in our final week before CultureMap’s Tastemaker Awards, our annual celebration of the best food and drink in Dallas, and it’s time to give our toques to the best of chefs.
Whether you’re running your own restaurant or overseeing a commercial kitchen, these 10 chefs have stood their ground in the most harrowing of times: tackling the operational challenges of a pandemic. They all managed to continue to serve excellent food in restaurants with appropriate hospitality.
They are the newest category in our editorial series where we highlight nominees in categories such as best bars, best neighborhood restaurants, best emerging star chefs, best pastry chefs, best bartenders and best ghost kitchens by a jury consisting of former CultureMap Tastemaker Award winners and local F&B experts.
Who will win? Find out at the Tastemaker Awards Party on August 19th at the Fashion Industry Gallery, where we’ll have canapes from nominated restaurants as host CJ Starr reveals the winners. Buy tickets here.
And you still have one day to vote in our competition for the best new restaurant, which is now in the finals, in which the two restaurants will compete for the title. The bracket ends on August 17th; vote, click here.
Here are the 10 best Dallas chefs:
Matt Balke – Encina
Born in Texas, Balke earned degrees in business marketing and hotel restaurant management from Texas Tech, then a degree from the Culinary Institute of America in 2007. He has worked on iconic York Street, Bolsa, Bolsa Mercado, The Rustic, and Smoke, and was head chef at Bolsa when it closed in 2020. He and his partner Corey McCombs took over the lease after Bolsa closed and opened Encina, their warm neighborhood restaurant serving New American cuisine, cocktails, wine and beer in October. He’s a new Tastemaker nominee after being nominated for Best Chef in 2017.
Junior Borges – Meridian
Raised in Rio de Janeiro, Borges graduated from the French Culinary Institute (now the Institute for Culinary Education) and then spent 13 years in New York at restaurants such as A Voce and Amali. He came to Dallas in 2014 as Senior Chef at Uchi and has worked at a number of high profile restaurants, including Matt McCallister’s FT33 and Joule Hotel, as the Executive Chef of the hotel’s numerous branches, including Mirador, Americano and CBD Provisions. He joined The Village as VP of Culinary and is also head chef at Meridian, the complex’s modern Brazilian gourmet restaurant.
Erik Carlson – Omni Dallas
Ohio-born Executive Chef Carlson has decades of fine dining and events experience. He attended the Culinary Institute of America, then ended up at The Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island and spent six years at that Florida resort. He worked as a banquet cook for the Galt House Hotel in Louisville and the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, then moved to Omni Dallas in May 2018, where he enjoyed the variety of menus on the property and the opportunity to experiment and be creative a great team.
Tiffany Derry – Roots Southern Table
A native of Beaumont, she began her culinary career at IHOP before graduating from the Art Institute of Houston. She rose to fame after appearing in Bravo’s Top Chef Season 7, earning the “Fan Favorite” title, and finishing in the top four. Since then she has been a regular on Food Network and Bravo, and has also appeared on Hungry Investors and Bar Rescue. She opened her Roots Southern Table restaurant in Farmers Branch in May 2021, inspired by her upbringing on her family’s farm in the south.
Joe Graffeo – Grill
A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Graffeo worked at Marriott hotels in Philadelphia, New York and Arizona before moving to Renaissance in Dallas in March 2020 as the pandemic was just breaking out. He began his career in the kitchen at the age of eight, making pasta from scratch with his grandmother. He is a master of hydroponic gardening and spends his free time making his own chef’s knives.
Uno Immanivong – Red Stix
The banker and head chef made her restaurant debut at Trinity Groves with the creation of Chino Chinatown, which received a Tastemaker nomination for Best New Restaurant in 2014 and remained popular until it closed in February 2020. Her new project is Red Stix Street Food. that recreates the street food of her childhood. It opened near the SMU in 2020 and earned Uno another nomination for Best New Restaurant. She has her own hospitality brand and is regularly featured on such channels as ABC, EyeOpener TV, Fox and Cooking Channel.
Jose Meza – Tulum
The brilliant Meza from Mexico City has a degree in gastronomy and has worked with star chefs such as Martin Berasategui, Bart de Pooyer and Rene Redzepi at Noma in Denmark. He worked at Moxi in San Miguel de Allende, then at the famous Carolina restaurant in the St. Regis Punta Mita Resort, northwest of Puerto Vallarta on the west coast of Mexico. He came to Dallas to run Jalisco Norte’s kitchen and now also runs the Tulum sibling restaurant. As a recurring candidate, he was nominated for best chef in 2019.
Afifa Nayeb – Ame
Nayeb, from Kabul, Afghanistan, and her daughter Sabrina caused a stir at the Dallas Farmers Market with their fresh and sophisticated food at Laili, which features Afghan food, and 8 cloves, which serve Indian food. They also have a juice stand called JuiceBabe. The duo took it to the next level in April with the opening of Âme, their charming and upscale contemporary Indian restaurant with new and traditional flavors in Bishop Arts.
Jimmy Park – Shoyo
Park began his career by persistently working his way through the Nobu chain, first in Aspen, then San Diego, before moving to Las Vegas, where he worked at Michelin-rated Kabuto Edomae Sushi and L’Atelier. He came to Dallas to work at Nobu, then helped open Pok the Raw Bar in Dallas’ West Village and Nori Handroll Bar in Deep Ellum. All of this led to the opening of Shoyo, his Omakase restaurant on Greenville Avenue, which is currently hip in Dallas.
Nikky Phinyawatana – Asian Mint
Nikky was originally from Bangkok, Thailand and immigrated to Dallas, where she attended Hockaday, received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree, and then attended the Culinary School of El Centro College. It opened the first Asian Mint in 2004 and currently has three locations in the DFW area. She turned dexterous with creative take-away programs during the pandemic and is a firm believer in making businesses both profitable and charitable. Asian Mint has donated to over 100 different charities, schools, and nonprofits.
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