When I stepped into one of the newest grill places in Dallas, I knew what I wanted as soon as I saw the menu. “Wagyu brisket,” I say to a man behind the counter at Oak’d Handcrafted BBQ, which recently opened on Greenville Avenue with an impressive group of supporters behind it. As I watched my food being prepared, I had no idea that it had taken several decades to get the meat to my plate. But I should find out more soon with a tour of the Hunt family’s Rosewood ranches on the agenda.
Beef Pros Chef Michael Lane is flanked by Walter Wilkerson and Tod Winn from Forum Meat.
Photography by Stacey Cleveland
Green-Minded Rosewood Ranches works with local distilleries to add value to used grain.
Photography by Stacey Cleveland
A life in ranching
Kenneth Braddock is exactly what you imagine when you picture a Texas rancher – thick white mustache, Stetson hat, and everything. He grew up in Panhandle with his dairy farmer father. Following in his father’s footsteps, he studied ranch management at Texas Christian University and made a brief career on a dairy farm before venturing into cattle embryo transplants.
His innovative work in calving led John Bunker Sands to call him in the early 1980s. Sands, the son of Caroline Rose Hunt, was the Executive Director of The Rosewood Corp. at the time. and responsible for wetland development on the family’s ranches. The two men had never met, but were connected during that two hour phone call and worked together on the ranch for nearly two decades.
“I learned a lot from him – about responsibility for the environment,” says Braddock of Sands, who died in 2003 after years of battling pancreatic cancer. “One of the greatest things I learned from him was how to really hunt ducks – and not just shoot ducks,” he recalls with a harsh laugh. This year, Braddock marks the 36th year with Rosewood. The morning of our conversation began with a testimonial about the quality of the ranch’s Texas Wagyu cattle.
Livestock
Put Wagyu on the menu
It was nine months before Michael Lane made a deal with Rosewood Ranches for the use of his prime and Wagyu beef at Oak’d – a first restaurant for the veteran chef who shared with all of Robert Del Grande at The Annie Café & Bar in Houston worked on Dean Fearing at the Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek. “You’re not just going to let someone pick you up,” says Lane. “It has to be a restaurant that serves its brand well.” In Rosewood, Lane was looking for a premium producer who had what it takes to grow. Many ranchers, he says, lack the ability to produce enough animals and “don’t have the connections or the knowledge to grow,” says Lane. “Kenneth [Braddock] has it all. He can foresee what I’ll need in two years and is now working on it. “
A Texas spin on Wagyu
Few know how much time and effort it takes to bring a piece of beef to the table. At Rosewood, the process of bringing beef to the table takes about 29 months. Braddock says he hit upon the idea of starting a meat business on the ranch about 20 years ago. As the demand for quality meat began to grow, he wanted to create a hybrid Texas-Angus version of the popular Wagyu beef.
“I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel from willow to plate. I just wanted to see if I could be the best at it, ”says Braddock.
Fortunately for him, Rosewood is the kind of company that gives you plenty of room to work with ideas – as long as they work. Working with a “middleman,” a high-end meat processor and Cutter Forum Meat Co., the ranch’s Wagyu is now on the menu of coveted restaurants, including several from José Andrés, such as his famous Las Vegas eatery, The Bazaar, Oak ‘d and Billy Can Can, to name a few.
A growing moment
Raised right
Kenneth Braddock shows off Rosewood’s premium Texas Wagyu.
Photography by Bianca R. Montes
And as the demand for premium beef continues to grow, Rosewood expects to process from around 3,000 cattle per year to over 5,000 over the next two years. Much of the demand comes from the growing awareness of people who want to know where their food comes from, especially the younger generation.
“They want a narrative,” says Todd Winn, co-founder of Forum Meat Co. “The local movement has gotten a lot bigger. Cooks and consumers are looking for Texas products with no hormones, no antibodies, and less processed. Rosewood is as pure as you can buy it. ”
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