List News

Only one Fort Worth spot lands on Texas Monthly's best new restaurants list

Gemelle's trademark Detroit-style pizza.

Photo courtesy of Gemelle

One Fort Worth restaurant got the nod from Texas Monthly in the magazine's annual assessment of the state's best new restaurants. Titled "The Best New Restaurants in Texas for 2020," the list ranks 10 establishments as well as honorable mentions.

The No. 1 restaurant on the list is Comedor, an elevated Mexican restaurant in Austin. Food editor Pat Sharpe raves, comparing it to James Beard Award-winner Hugo Ortega's three Mexican restaurants as well as Pujol, the Mexico City restaurant ranked 12th in the world.

The only Fort Worth restaurant to make the cut: Gemelle, the Italian restaurant from celebrity chef Tim Love, which comes in at No. 9.

Three Dallas restaurants also make the list: Homewood, Salaryman, and Khao Noodle Shop, the small East Dallas eatery which Bon Appétit named the second-best new restaurant in the country in 2019. Two Dallas restaurants earn honorable mentions: Ka-Tip Thai Street Food and Beverley's.

About Gemelle, Sharpe says, "Tim Love is nothing if not a Texas chef. At his flagship Lonesome Dove Western Bistro, in Fort Worth, he’s built a reputation on the likes of wagyu ribeyes and smoked venison short ribs. But he’s always had a thing for Italian food. So when a suburban restaurant space became available, he jumped at the chance to try something new. ... Start with an appetizer like the terrific celery root carpaccio. For serious sustenance, turn to super-cheesy, rectangular Detroit-style pizzas (Tim’s wife, Emilie, is from Michigan). Inevitably, some hallmark Love touches show up on the menu, notably the cannellini bean–jalapeño pesto ravioli with rabbit-rattlesnake sausage. Once a Texas chef, always a Texas chef."

To be eligible for the list, establishments must have opened between December 1, 2018 and December 1, 2019, and it must be a restaurant's first Texas location.

Houston has three entries, all ranking in the top five: Squable, Davis St. at Hermann Park, and MAD. Two Houston restaurants also earn honorable mentions: One Fifth Gulf Coast and Rosie Cannonball.

Savor, the restaurant at the Culinary Institute of America, provides San Antonio with its lone entry in the top 10, but both Evo and Kindling Texas Kitchen (in the suburb of Cibolo) earn honorable mentions for the Alamo City.

Sharpe notes that this year's list has an international feel with eateries that take their inspiration from places such as Italy, Japan, Goa, and Spain. She finds another tie that binds most of her choices.

"I've noticed a trend that has been growing since the craft cocktail movement began a couple of decades ago; restaurants are becoming more like bars," Sharpe writes. "That is, more casual and (sigh) noisier than ever."

lists awards

Chef News

Fort Worth's Will Rogers Memorial Center welcomes bright new chef

FortWorthtx.gov

Will Rogers Memorial Center

There's a new chef in town: Waylon Cornelius, named executive chef of catering and concessions for Craft Culinary Concepts, the food and beverage provider at Will Rogers Memorial Center.

Will Rogers Memorial Center is the 120-acre entertainment complex anchoring Fort Worth’s Cultural District, owned and operated by the City of Fort Worth. Cornelius will oversee menus for trade shows and other events at the center which bring in more than 2 million visitors a year.

Craft Culinary Concepts is headquartered in Glendale, Arizona, and manages food and beverage programs for entertainment, sports and cultural facilities.

Chef Waylon Corneliusfortworthtx.gov

According to a release, Cornelius joined the team this summer and is already shifting the expectations of guests from a typical “BBQ and beans” menu to a bill of fare satisfying every kind of palate.

“We always have fajitas ready to go, but we also make a beautiful Beef Wellington or baked salmon with a pink salt crust,” Cornelius says in a statement.

For consumer trade shows, Craft and its partners Caribou and Taco Heads offer more choices for the thousands of guests who attend events at WRMC annually.

“Some of our equestrian guests are away from home and here for several days, and they need more than popcorn and hot dogs,” Cornelius says. “Our concessions offer biscuits and gravy, burritos made in-house, strawberry salad, fruit and yogurt cups.”

A native of Mansfield, Cornelius grew up helping in a farm-to-table kitchen. He was raised on a farm with his mother, grandmother, and grandfather -- a Vietnam veteran who enjoyed vegetable gardens and raising hogs and chickens. He studied computer science after high school and holds an associate's degree in Cultural Resource Management and Policy Analysis from Tarrant County College.

He's a 2003 graduate of AIMS Academy of Culinary Arts in Dallas where he was mentored by a number of great chefs. While training as assistant executive sous chef at the AAA four-diamond Grand Hyatt DFW, he worked with Executive Chef Sutti Sripolpa, chef Eric Dreyer (who went on to be Oprah Winfrey’s personal chef), and Chef Jean-Claude Plihon, under whom he honed his French cooking skills.

As executive sous chef at the opening of Perry’s Steakhouse and Grille in Southlake, Cornelius gained expertise with volume. While at HG Sply Co., he learned about gluten-free items and other food allergies.

HG Sply is also where he crossed paths with Chef James R. Schell III, Craft’s general manager at WRMC, who recruited Cornelius to the complex.

"James said he needed someone who can hit moving targets, push the culinary team to be more avant-garde and use locally sourced, seasonal ingredients, so here I am," Cornelius says. "Culinary is a small world."

“I want people to say, ‘When we were in Fort Worth, you won’t believe what we got at Will Rogers!’” Schell says. “Even the celebrities who perform [in the auditorium] are surprised. When Chicago played here recently and we served dinner backstage, they said they felt treated like the Rolling Stones.”

chefs