Sometimes a simple idea can have so many benefits that it starts to sound profound. The most exciting food events on Dallas’ calendar for the rest of this year are a good example of such a basic but clever idea.
Let’s start with the problems these events help solve. Summertime is a quiet period for Dallas restaurants, as diners spend as little time as possible outside their air-conditioned homes (and as much time as possible on vacation somewhere else). Dallas still lacks the kind of national networking and exposure that lead to big awards. And local chefs worry about how to introduce Dallas diners to new cultures, ideas, and styles.
Triple solution: bring in guest chefs from other cities, states, and even continents for can’t-miss dinner events.
Two guest chef dinner series kicking off this summer promise some of the most exciting meals of the year. Quarter Acre, the quietly excellent bistro on Greenville Avenue, will host a “season” of guests for dinners benefiting a charity close to its chef’s heart, and ceramicist Marcello Andres is welcoming chefs and diners to his studio for the series Kiln to Table.
Here’s what you need to know about the events, their hosts, and our guests.
Kiln to Table: Dinner in the ceramic studio
Marcello Andres’ ceramics studio has always been intimately tied to the food business. He makes plates, bowls, copitas, and other food-service wares for many of your favorite restaurants.
The first Kiln to Table dinner happened in May, with local chef Justin Box, who has found a fascinating niche cooking for punk musicians. Next up, this July: two nights of cultural immersion into the food, drink, and music of Bolivia.
The Bolivian dinners are a collaboration between local chef Gigi Zimmermann—formerly of Joyce and Gigi’s—and Marsia Taha, who is probably the most famous and most acclaimed chef in Bolivia. Taha, who’s been praised on global best-restaurant lists, is flying up with a suitcase full of rare ingredients.
“I have been following Marsia’s work for a very long time, because she’s a compatriot and she’s done so much and worked really hard where she is now,” Zimmermann says. “I wanted to do a true Bolivian [dinner], and I wanted to unite forces with someone. It so happened that she was in the same mindset. She’s traveling around the world for the love of food and sharing everything she’s doing at Gustu in La Paz. We had pretty much the same mission.”
Traditional Bolivian food is rare in the United States. Creative, untraditional fare of the kind Taha serves is even rarer. And Zimmermann promises we’ll get a mix of both. The two chefs are from opposite ends of the country. Taha works in La Paz, which sits two miles above sea level, and Zimmermann was raised in the Amazon basin. They’ll blend those two heritages at dinner, combining ingredients and regional styles in a way that traditionally would not happen in Bolivia. Taha and Zimmermann will also each serve a traditional soup from their home cities.
“Uniting all those ingredients that were separated because of a lot of politics—we kind of want to merge them again,” Zimmermann explains. She adds that some of these ingredients simply aren’t available in the United States. She grows some traditional herbs in her Dallas garden, and Taha plans to bring dehydrated items. “I want to open curiosity in people. A lot of these courses have stories.”
It will be an immersive experience, too. There will be small sample tastes of Bolivian wines and liqueurs and guest musicians. One is a member of the Dallas Symphony and the other is flying in from Bolivia.
Andres’ communal dining table sits in a small side room next to the main space where his team shapes and hand-finishes ceramics. As I ask him why he uses this venue to host special-occasion dinners, the answer is all around us in his work: plates, bowls, drinking vessels, and other pieces that evoke his love of food and of the experience of sharing a meal with others.
“Collaborating with chefs is a big part of what we do,” Andres says. “Any time I can collaborate with a restaurateur on how to feature their menu is exciting, and this is great in a different way. Sometimes I deliver the plates and I don’t get to see food plated and served unless I go there.”
Dallas chefs have long been enthusiastic about Andres’ craft, and the mutual respect creates a feedback loop of creativity, as the plate-maker and the cook encourage each other to pursue new ideas. In the studio during my visit, shelves of plates are labeled by the chef or restaurant to which they’ll be delivered: Peja Krstic, R.J. Yoakum, Misti Norris, Beverley’s, and one out-of-towner: Eleven Madison Park. These chefs get first dibs to be Kiln to Table collaborators.
“To the extent we can, I want to make specific plates for these dinners,” Andres says, adding that Zimmermann had her pick of plates that most closely connected with Bolivia’s traditions. He’s inspired by the opportunity to appeal to as many senses as possible. “What are the colors of your food? What are the colors of the plates?”
Drifter Dinner Series: Charitable nights at Quarter Acre
This summer and fall, Quarter Acre’s Drifter Dinner Series will bring flavors from across the United States to Greenville Avenue. Chef-owner Toby Archibald thinks of it like a season: guests can book “season passes” to all four meals or individual seats, and if the series is a hit, there will be a “season two” next year.
For Archibald and his crew, the excitement comes from connecting Dallasites and Dallas restaurants to colleagues across the country—including showing the cooks how other chefs approach their work.
“I feel really excited about it because it’s like, cool, I don’t have to do my food tonight,” Archibald says. “Whose food are we doing? It’s like putting on a mask for the night.”
The guests make for an impressive lineup: Diego Galicia of the celebrated San Antonio restaurant Mixtli, San Diego “borderless” adventurer Keith Lord, Minneapolis restaurateur Gavin Kaysen, and the toast of Houston, Aaron Bludorn. Galicia will collaborate on one of his signature deeply researched Mexican tasting menus in August, and Bludorn—who was Archibald’s boss when both worked for legendary chef Daniel Boulud—will wrap the series up just before Thanksgiving.
There’s another important element to the Quarter Acre series: its charity beneficiary. Dinner tickets are $495 per seat, with a portion donated to the Tiniest Texans, a support program at Baylor Scott & White’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Archibald’s daughter was born nine weeks early at Baylor University Medical Center, and stayed in NICU for seven weeks.
“She was three and a half pounds,” he says. “She wasn’t the smallest [they work with].” Nearly two years later, he still chokes up a little bit talking about it, and apologizes midsentence. “Every time,” he says, before explaining his gratitude to Tiniest Texans. “They take things as big as your phone and turn them into regular humans with so much expertise. The support you got—it was amazing. The help they give you. Just this last Christmas we went back and gave all the staff cookies. We took Francesca in, we were like, ‘Here she is! She’s fat and healthy! Thank you!’”
In addition to all the culinary attractions it offers, Quarter Acre’s new dinner series is another way of expressing that gratitude, too.
Update, 2:15 p.m.: This article has been updated to correct the age of Toby Archibald’s daughter.
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