Stephan Pyles is a chef, cookbook author, philanthropist, and educator. His dishes blend elements of Southern homestyle cooking, Southwestern fare,

Mexican food Mexican cuisine consists of the cooking cuisines and traditions of the modern country of Mexico. Its earliest roots lie in Mesoamerican cuisine. Its ingredients and methods begin with the first agricultural communities such as the Olmec and M ...

and

Tex-Mex Tex-Mex cuisine (from the words ''Texan'' and ''Mexican'') is an American cuisine that derives from the culinary creations of the ''Tejano'' people of Texas. It has spread from border states such as Texas and others in the Southwestern United ...

food, as well as

Cajun cuisine Cajun cuisine (french: cuisine cadienne , es, cocina acadiense) is a style of cooking developed by the Cajun–Acadians who were deported from Acadia to Louisiana during the 18th century and who incorporated West African, French and Spanish ...

and Creole cookery. Pyles, along with his colleagues, Dean Fearing, Robert Del Grande and Anne Lindsay Greer contributed to changes in the cuisine of the U.S. states of Texas,

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe, New Mexico, Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque, New Mexico, Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Albuquerque metropolitan area, Tiguex , Offi ...

and

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States. It is the list of U.S. states and territories by area, 6th largest and the list of U.S. states and territories by population, 14 ...

. Pyles spent more than 25 years in the

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

restaurant circuit and was further the main creator of New Texas Cuisine. His first two restaurants were the

business casual Business casual is an ambiguously defined Western dress code that is generally considered casual wear but with smart (in the sense of "well dressed") components of a proper lounge suit from traditional informal wear, adopted for white-col ...

Routh Street Cafe which was founded in 1983 as well as a miniature version of said restaurant called Baby Routh. These restaurants are known for being the

flagship A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically the f ...

of the Southwestern Cuisine explosion of the 1980s and 1990s. Since opening Routh Street Cafe, Pyles has opened some 15 restaurants, including Samar in the fall of 2009. Pyles is a fifth-generation Texan. He was awarded, 'Outstanding Restaurateur of the Year' by both the Minnesota Restaurant Association and Texas Restaurant Association. Stephan Pyles is the author of five cookbooks on Texan and Southwestern Cuisine. In addition to his many achievements, he also hosted the

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

winning

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of ed ...

television series "New Tastes From Texas With Chef Stephan Pyles." This series ran between 1998 and 1999 and included a number of guest

Celebrity chef A celebrity chef is a kitchen chef who has become a celebrity. Today, chefs often become celebrities by presenting cookery advice and demonstrations, usually through the media of television and radio, or in printed publications. While television ...

s, including

Diana Kennedy Diana Kennedy MBE (; 3 March 1923 – 24 July 2022) was a British food writer. A primary English-language authority on Mexican cuisine, Kennedy was known for her nine books on the subject, including ''The Cuisines of Mexico'', which changed h ...

Rick Bayless Rick Bayless (born November 23, 1953) is an American chef and restaurateur who specializes in traditional Mexican cuisine with modern interpretations. He is widely known for his PBS series '' Mexico: One Plate at a Time''. Among his various acco ...

Patricia Quintana Patricia Quintana Fernández (28 October 1946 – 26 November 2018), was a Mexican chef, writer, businesswoman and professor. She was a recognized international cook and expert in Mexican gastronomy. Biography Patricia Quintana was a special ...

Zarela Martinez Zarela is a feminine given name. Notable people with the name include: * Zarela Martínez, Mexican-American restaurateur and cookbook author *Zarela Villanueva Monge Zarela Villanueva Monge is a Costa Rican magistrate, who served as President of ...

, Americo Circuit and

David Garrido Sky Sports News (SSN) is a British paid television sports news channel run by Sky, a division of Comcast. History Since 1992, Sky Sports had broadcast sports news, initially a brief ''Football Update'' and later this was expanded into a ...

Early life

Stephan Pyles was born in

Big Spring, Texas Big Spring is a city in and the county seat of Howard County, Texas, United States, at the crossroads of U.S. Highway 87 and Interstate 20. With a population of 27,282 as of the 2010 census, it is the largest city between Midland to the west, ...

, in 1952. He received classical training in

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production ...

and piano, but preferred to apprentice in the kitchen of his family's

West Texas West Texas is a loosely defined region in the U.S. state of Texas, generally encompassing the arid and semiarid lands west of a line drawn between the cities of Wichita Falls, Abilene, and Del Rio. No consensus exists on the boundary betwe ...

truck stop A truck stop, known as a service station in the United Kingdom, and a travel center by major chains in the United States, is a commercial facility which provides refueling, rest (parking), and often ready-made food and other services to motori ...

. This was followed by training in fine

French Cuisine French cuisine () is the cooking traditions and practices from France. It has been influenced over the centuries by the many surrounding cultures of Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium, in addition to the food traditions of the r ...

. Pyles published a cookbook entitled "The New Texas Cuisine", which made him nationally recognized by his early thirties.

Career

Pyles owned and operated the Dallas restaurants Routh Street Cafe and Baby Routh from 1983 to 1993. He owned and operated the restaurants Goodfellow's and Tejas in Minneapolis from 1987 to 1993. In 1994 Pyles opened Star Canyon. The

James Beard Foundation The James Beard Foundation is a New York City-based national non-profit culinary arts organization named in honor of James Beard, a prolific food writer, teacher, and cookbook author, who was also known as the "Dean of American Cookery." The prog ...

called it one of the top five new restaurants in America, and it was well-reviewed in Bon Apetit,

Esquire Magazine ''Esquire'' is an American men's magazine. Currently published in the United States by Hearst Communications, it also has more than 20 international editions. Founded in 1933, it flourished during the Great Depression and World War II under ...

, Town and Country,

Playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. K ...

and other publications. The September 1998 issue of

Food and Wine Magazine ''Food & Wine'' is an American monthly magazine published by Dotdash Meredith. It was founded in 1978 by Ariane and Michael Batterberry. It features recipes, cooking tips, travel information, restaurant reviews, chefs, wine pairings and seas ...

listed Star Canyon as the "quintessential Dallas restaurant." In 1997, Pyles opened AquaKnox, a global seafood restaurant. It too was named the best new restaurant by Food and Wine. In 1998, Pyles sold Star Canyon and AquaKnox to

Carlson Restaurants WorldWide Carlson is an American privately held company headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota, United States. Its primary subsidiaries are CWT, a travel management company, and Carlson Private Capital Partners, a family office that manages the owners' we ...

and during the next two years opened new versions of Star Canyon: in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish language, Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the List of United States cities by population, 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the U.S. state, state of Neva ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...

, at The Venetian, and at the

Stephen F. Austin Stephen Fuller Austin (November 3, 1793 – December 27, 1836) was an American-born empresario. Known as the "Father of Texas" and the founder of Anglo-Americans, Anglo Texas,Hatch (1999), p. 43. he led the second and, ultimately, the success ...

Hotel in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

. Back in Dallas, he opened FishBowl, an Asian-themed restaurant, and a casual Mexican restaurant called Taqueria Cañonita, which was later replicated in several cities around the U.S.A. He has appeared around the world as a guest celebrity chef and was one of five chefs worldwide invited to prepare dinner for

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 19 ...

’s 70th birthday. In addition to his first cookbook, The New Texas Cuisine, Pyles has also co-authored Tamales, and written New Tastes from Texas, and Southwestern Vegetarian. He further worked full-time on the PBS TV show New Tastes from Texas. Pyles was also a cuisine consultant for a number of hotel and resort companies as well as for American Airlines.

Change & New Discoveries

In 2001 Pyles took a five-year “siesta” from the restaurant world; he used the time to travel, educate, teach, and write. During this hiatus, he spent significant time in Latin America, and the Eastern

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on th ...

including the

Levant The Levant () is an approximation, approximate historical geography, historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology an ...

, Spain and

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

. These places would all provide cultural influences for his new restaurant ventures. In 2006, Pyles opened in Dallas a new restaurant named after himself. The "Stephan Pyles" Restaurant is situated in the Dallas Arts District and offers "New Millennium Southwestern Cuisine," a constantly evolving and cutting-edge cuisine style. This is a global tapestry of tastes, flavors, aromas and textures from Texas, South America, Spain, the Middle East and the Mediterranean. On November 22, 2009, a second new Dallas Arts District restaurant by Chef Pyles was opened, "Samar by Stephan Pyles". The word "Samar" is a concept designed on combining three cultures, Spain, Eastern Mediterranean and India.

Philanthropy, consulting, and scholarship fund

Stephan Pyles is a founding board member of

Share Our Strength Share Our Strength is a national organization working to end childhood hunger and poverty in the United States. Share Our Strength holds culinary events, solicits individual donations, and uses social media to raise funds, which are then used to ...

, America’s largest hunger relief organization. In 1998, Share Our Strength presented Pyles with the Humanitarian of the Year Award for his outstanding patronage. Pyles founded Dallas’ Taste of the Nation event for the organization in 1988, raising over $1,500,000 for local ministries and food pantries. He also serves as a life board member of The

North Texas Food Bank The North Texas Food Bank (NTFB) is a social benefit organization located in Plano, Texas. The organization distributes donated, purchased and prepared foods through a network of nearly 1,000 feeding programs and 400 Partner Agencies in 13 North ...

(NTFB), an organization that “seeks to eliminate hunger by distributing food and grocery products through a network of nonprofits while providing education and increasing community awareness”. Since its inception in 1982, NTFB has procured and locally distributed more than 293 million pounds of food. In 1986, Pyles co-founded NTFB's perishable food program The Hunger Link, which connects Dallas restaurants and hotels with shelters and meal programs. In addition to running two top-scale and demanding restaurants and his charity work, Pyles serves as a cuisine consultant to

Gaylord Texan Gaylord is a name of Norman French origin, from the Old French ''gaillard'' meaning "joyful" or "high-spirited". It may refer to: People *Gaylord (given name) Surname *Bill Gaylord (born 1967), British former alpine skier *Charles Gaylord (1936 ...

Resort & Convention Center in

Grapevine, Texas Grapevine is a city and suburb of Dallas and Fort Worth located in northeast Tarrant County, Texas, United States, with minor portions extending into Dallas County and Denton County. The city is located in the Mid-Cities suburban region betwe ...

, where he developed the restaurant's menu and continues to provide culinary direction. He also has returned to work as a cuisine consultant for American Airlines and is also a chief chef consultant for Dallas-based

Art Institutes The Art Institutes (AI) are a collection of private for-profit art schools in the United States. Since 2019, the schools have been owned by Education Principle Foundation (aka Colbeck Foundation), a non-profit that also owns South Universit ...

International. Since 2000, the Food and Wine Foundation of Texas has awarded a $15,000 scholarship to a worthy Texas-based culinary student. The award is given to the winner of a cook-off held in a number of cities around the state. This scholarship is called "The Stephan Pyles Scholarship Fund."

Cookbooks

*''The New Texas Cuisine'' *''Tamales'' *''New Tastes from Texas'' *''Southwestern Vegetarian''

References