Who’s cooking in Dallas? New chefs at Meddlesome Moth, Hawthorn and the Virgin Hotel

Chefs in Dallas are making moves. Here’s the latest.

Suki Otsuki, most recently the executive chef at Meddlesome Moth in the Dallas Design District, is taking a break from big-city kitchens. She is now the chef at Retreat in the Pines, a women’s yoga getaway east of Dallas in Mineola, Texas. Otsuki says she’s looking forward to the slower pace of the retreat, noting that “going through the pandemic in a restaurant was just tough.” Otsuki was previously the executive chef at Mudhen Meat and Greens, a healthful restaurant in the Dallas Farmers Market that closed in late 2019.

“If Mudhen hadn’t closed, you would have had to pry my cold, dead hands off the stove. I loved it,” she says. “Luckily, I was able to transition to Moth and be very effective there. ... But, yeah: Mudhen was very special to me.”

Josh Boneé will be Meddlesome Moth’s new executive chef. He previously worked at Lucky’s Hot Chicken, Fine China and Flora Street Cafe in Dallas. He has also worked in Tennessee for chefs Sean Brock and Erik Neil. Boneé plans to launch charcuterie and fermentation programs at the Moth, “all without having the pretentiousness of a fine-dining place,” he explains.

Preston Paine, a Dallas native who recently worked in the high-profile kitchen at Eleven Madison Park in New York City, has taken a new job as director of culinary at ARG Concepts. Paine will oversee all of the restaurants operated by ARG Concepts: Oak, Pakpao, El Bolero and Hawthorn, a new restaurant in downtown Dallas.

“I think there are a lot of growth opportunities here,” he says, saying that he’s already been given “a lot of creative freedom.”

Paine worked briefly at Catbird, another new downtown Dallas restaurant, in late 2020. Paine also spent some time developing the menu at Shug’s Bagels when he first arrived in Dallas, mid-pandemic.

Eleven Madison Park is one of the best restaurants in the world. It’s closed because of the pandemic, and a young, ambitious Paine says he doesn’t have plans to return to New York.

“Dallas is home now,” he says. “Even if it does reopen, I’m going to plant my roots here.”

Jeramie Robison will continue to oversee Catbird. Robison has been the culinary director and executive chef over the Thompson Hotel’s two restaurants, Catbird and Nine at the National, since before they opened.

In another section of the National in downtown Dallas, Chicago chef Danny Grant snagged Eric Dreyer to be the executive chef at coming-soon restaurant Monarch. The restaurant is a wood-fired modern Italian place on the 49th and 50th floors of a high-rise. Dreyer was recently the executive chef of Ellie’s, an art-filled fine-dining restaurant inside the Hall Arts Hotel in the Dallas Arts District. Before Dreyer was at Ellie’s, he was Oprah Winfrey’s personal chef at her mansion in California and executive chef at Fearing’s in the Ritz-Carlton in Uptown Dallas.

[Update on March 17, 2021: Ellie’s new executive chef is Dan Landsberg. He spent 11 years working for ZaZa Hospitality, which operates Dragonfly in Dallas.]

Matt McCallister remains the top toque at Homewood, his restaurant on Oak Lawn Avenue in Dallas. But he’s no longer consulting at The Commons Club, the restaurant inside the Virgin Hotel in the Dallas Design District. McCallister’s contract expired at the end of 2020.

Jared Harms has taken over as the executive chef of Virgin Hotels Dallas. Harms has worked at the Mansion at Turtle Creek, York Street and the Fairmont Hotel, according to a spokeswoman.

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