Meet the Chefs of the 2018 Dallas Arboretum Food and Wine Festival
The Dallas Arboretum Food and Wine Festival is coming on March 22! (You can get your tickets here: DallasArboretum.org/FoodWineFest) It’s going to be an absolutely wonderful evening of delicious bites, savory sips, and the breathtaking beauty of Dallas Blooms. Now that the full list of participating chefs, with regions of cuisine they’ll be serving, and wineries has been released, we thought you might want to get to know a few of the chefs who will be here.
The regions of cuisine we’ll be serving are Mediterranean, Pan Asian, South American and American Bistro.
Starting with the two co-chairs of this year’s festival, we’d like to introduce Chefs Janice Provost of Parigi (in the American Bistro section) and Sharon Van Meter of Taco y Vino (in the South American section). Together, the two of them have infused our Food and Wine festival with the love of good food, the desire to continue expanding the Dallas food scene and make it more accessible, and brought a vibrant energy to this special night at the Dallas Arboretum.
Chef Janice Provost has owned Parigi since 2001, and she’s been a fixture on the Dallas food scene ever since. Born in Houston, she is a self-proclaimed Francophile, a pioneer of the local food movement in North Texas, and is dedicated to helping educate future generations learn the Culinary Arts.
Chef Sharon Van Meter has been in the food industry for 40 years, and has a history of excellence and trailblazing in the United States culinary world. She has been on the Board of Directors of the Greater Dallas Restaurant Association since 2010, and is the chef & owner of 3015 at Trinity Groves.
American Bistro
David “Spoon” Gauthier of Smoky Rose. A relative newcomer to Dallas, he hit the ground running when Smoky Rose opened last year, right down the street from the Dallas Arboretum. He spent four years in the army before attending Le Cordon Bleu, and now he’s always looking for new ways to bring big, bold spice to his dishes, with a positive attitude!
Mediterranean
Chef Robert Lyford of Patina Green Home and Market. A lifelong Texan, Chef Lyford started with the idea of serving seasonal flavors, sourced from local farms to provide the best ingredients. A champion for local movements and farmers, Lyford plans to bring the same deliciousness that earned Patina Green the title of “Best Sandwich in the State of Texas” according to Food Network.
Pan Asian
Chef Jacob Williamson of Five Sixty. This Dallas native and fourth generation Texan brings a strong culinary education and experience cooking for some of the biggest names in the industry across the country to bear as the executive chef at Five Sixty.
South American
Meet Chef Dunia Borga, of La Duni. Hailing from Bogota, she arrived in Dallas via Malibu, California, and New York City, NY, with a love of surfing, Latin food, and pastry making in tow. Chef Borga has nearly two decade of experience making award-winning pastries in the Dallas Area, and La Duni is an essential fixture in the Dallas food scene.
Have a participating chef you’d like to learn more about? Let us know and tag the chef on social and we’ll do our best to help them share their story!
