Tag: chef

On a recent Saturday night in autumn, eager dinner guests filled a normally quiet coffeehouse – Foolish Things, on the fringes of downtown Tulsa. A server brought the first of the seven course dinner: a tart with roasted beet ganache, whipped goat cheese and pomegranate in a walnut crust.  It didn’t taste like beets or cheese, but like a rich,...

There are two restaurants, two cafés, twelve concession stands and three event centers at the Tulsa Zoo. Each day, Cameron Werry is responsible for every meal served at each of these venues, and there’s thousands of them. Not to mention the event centers ... which sometimes host parties for as many as twelve thousand guests.  “But,” he says, “I’m very...

Chef Chris McKenna is no stranger to the Oklahoma City culinary scene. A native of Edmond, McKenna has turned out eye-catching and palate-pleasing dishes at OKC favorites such as Stella Modern Italian Cuisine, Packards New American Kitchen, Oso on Paseo and Clark Crew BBQ.  McKenna’s latest project is the Joinery, a multi-faceted and multi-leveled hotspot for Italian-American cuisine, craft beer...

Some chefs are born with a love of food and cooking and their earliest memories are of perching on a chair or ladder helping mommy cook. Erick Del Valle wasn’t one of these; infatuation hit him late and hard.  So there he was, a high school student in Caracas, Venezuela, about to graduate, become a college major in economics, a...

For chef Kevin Lee, creating memorable meals is nothing new. During his 18 year career as a curator of culinary excellence, he has worked in some of Oklahoma City’s most popular restaurants, including fine dining and Korean fast casual. He even operated the culinary team for an entire restaurant group.  Born in Norman but raised in Connecticut, Korea and Seattle,...

So here he comes, big and burly yet tired from the kitchen – his crisp chef whites still as starched and elegant as the impeccably ironed linen on the Art Deco dining room tables.  It’s just before 5 p.m., and Demarcus Kelly’s taking a break after six hours of work, a brief respite before the first diners come and he’s...

Though he has lived in Los Angeles and Dallas and even made it into the top three of Bravo’s reality competition Top Chef, chef Joshua Valentine always comes home, and he’s always been a proud Oklahoman. Valentine is one of the fortunate handful of culinarians who can say that they went through the apprenticeship program with chef Kurt Fleischfresser at...

The space once home to the Coach House, one of Oklahoma City’s most well-known fine dining establishments, has been welcoming guests under its new persona, The Hutch on Avondale, since 2016. Chef Kurt Fleischfresser of Western Concepts decided to shift to a more casual, relaxed concept, and it’s been well-received.  These days, the Hutch still offers an innovative, upscale dining...

One afternoon in early June 2019, Wyatt Rogers’ plane landed in Tulsa. He didn’t go to his newly rented apartment, nor did he stop anywhere to drop off his bags. Instead, he drove straight to Brookside, walked into Oren Restaurant, found Chef Matt Amberg and talked himself into a job.  “I want to be around people better than me,” explains...

For many people, going to the grocery store, prepping meals and cleaning the kitchen are the kind of mundane chores they’d prefer to avoid. For Joanna Gold and her team of personal chefs, it’s all in a day’s work.  A native of New Jersey, Gold started her business Gold Plated in 2013. She designed her in-home culinary services for busy...