|
A fifth-generation Texan and a pioneer of New American Cuisine, Chef Pyles has created 14 restaurants over the past 22 years. A founding father of Southwestern Cuisine, he was the first Texan inducted into The James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America and Bon Appetit has credited him with “almost single-handedly changing the cooking scene in Texas.” The New York Times has called Pyles “an absolute genius in the kitchen,” while Texas Monthly Magazine named him one of the “twenty most impressive, intriguing, and influential Texans for 1998.”
While chef and owner of Routh Street Cafe and Baby Routh (1983-1993) and Goodfellow’s and Tejas in Minneapolis (1987-1993), Pyles was the recipient of numerous awards, including the AAA Five Diamond Award, Nation’s Restaurant News’ Fine Dining Hall of Fame Award, Restaurants and Institutions’ Ivy Award, and the American Academy of Achievement Award. He was the inaugural recipient of The James Beard Foundation’s award for Best Chef: Southwest in 1991 and has been given the Outstanding Restaurateur of the Year award by both the Minnesota Restaurant Association and the Texas Restaurant Association. In 1990, Courvoisier’s Book of the Best named Routh Street Café the fifth best restaurant in America.
In 1994, Pyles opened Star Canyon, and during his tenure there it was on the lists of “best new restaurants” in Esquire, Bon Appetit and Town and Country. It was named one of the top five new restaurants in America by the James Beard Foundation, and in March 1998, Playboy, polling 100 top food critics, named it one of America’s top twenty-five restaurants. The September 1998 issue of Food and Wine listed Star Canyon as the “quintessential Dallas restaurant” and in the same year, Pyles received the Humanitarian of the Year Award from Share Our Strength, America’s largest hunger relief organization.
In 1997, Pyles opened AquaKnox, a global seafood restaurant, to critical acclaim and it was named best new restaurant by Food and Wine. Pyles sold Star Canyon and AquaKnox to Carlson Restaurants WorldWide in 1998, and during the next two years opened Star Canyons in Las Vegas at the Venetian Hotel and Resort and at the Stephen F. Austin Hotel in Austin. He also developed two new concepts for the company – FishBowl, an Asian restaurant, and a casual Mexican restaurant called Taqueria Cañonita, which was replicated in several cities around the country. In late 2000, with the transition completed, Pyles left CRW to pursue his favorite activities: traveling and researching, consulting, writing, teaching, and producing television cooking shows.
Throughout his career, Pyles has cooked for dignitaries and celebrities, from HRH Queen Elizabeth II and Mikhail Gorbachev to Mick Jagger and Sharon Stone. He has also appeared around the world as a guest celebrity chef and was one of five chefs worldwide invited to prepare dinner for Jimmy Carter’s 70th birthday.
Pyles’ first cookbook, The New Texas Cuisine, published by Doubleday, was named by Bon Appetit as one of the top ten chef’s cookbooks of the decade (1990s) and is now in its ninth printing. Pyles has also co-authored Tamales, published by McMillan, and New Tastes from Texas, which is the companion piece to his Emmy-award-winning, nationally syndicated PBS television series by the same name. He is also host of a weekly cooking segment on the Texas ABC affiliate, which airs throughout the state. In addition, he has appeared frequently on such national programs as Good Morning America and The Today Show. His fourth cookbook, Southwestern Vegetarian, was published by Clarkson-Potter, a division of Random House, in 2001.
Pyles is a founding board member of Share Our Strength, an international hunger relief organization. In addition, he serves as a life board member of The North Texas Food Bank and is on The National Culinary Advisor’s Board of The Art Institutes. In 1988, he founded Dallas’ Taste of the Nation event, which has raised over $1,500,000 for local ministries and food pantries. He was co-founder of The Hunger Link, Dallas’ perishable food program which links restaurants and hotels with shelters and other feeding programs.
Pyles was the founding concept chef for the nationally acclaimed Dragonfly restaurant at Hotel ZaZa, and he currently serves as a consultant to Ama Lur at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas, where he developed the restaurant’s menu and continues to provide culinary direction.
After 22 years and 14 restaurants, Pyles opened his namesake restaurant ‘Stephan Pyles’ which serves what Pyles calls “New Millennium Southwestern Cuisine”. His menu is more global than in the past, representing not only the influences of Spain on the New World, but also incorporating the cultures and flavors that are inherently Spanish, such as Middle Eastern and Mediterranean.
Under the auspices of The Wine and Food Foundation of Texas, Pyles offers a $15,000 annual scholarship in his name to a rising star culinary student somewhere in the state of Texas.
www.stephanpyles.com
|
