Stephan Pyles: Chef and Philanthropist

Bon Appétit has credited Stephan Pyles with "almost single-handedly changing the cooking scene in Texas." The culinary wunderkind has created 14 restaurants, published best selling cookbooks, produced an Emmy-winning TV series, and even brought home the James Beard award. This pioneer of New Millennium Southwestern Cuisine has finally opened a fabulous restaurant which bears his own name.

What's left to conquer? Hunger. Pyles' passion is serving his community and ensuring that no one has to go to bed on an empty stomach. Stephan Pyles is a founding board member of Share Our Strength, America's largest hunger relief organization. In 1998, Share Our Strength presented Pyles 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 (NTFB), an organization which "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. The Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Foundation and Pyles encourage rising stars by offering a $15,000 annual scholarship in his name to a promising Texas culinary student.

Stephan Pyles and fellow celebrity chefs staged cooking demonstrations at the first annual Savor Dallas. This year, his eponymous restaurant will be one of more than 50 hot dining establishments to join 500 wines and spirits for the event's spectacular International Grand Tasting evening. Savor Dallas, an international experience of food, wine, spirits, and the arts, benefits the Greater Dallas Restaurant Association Education and Scholarship Fund, the Arts Magnet Building Campaign for Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, and North Texas Food Bank.

Milestones

1983 - Chef and Owner of award-winning Routh Street Café and Baby Routh in Minneapolis until 1993
1987 - Chef and Owner of award-winning Goodfellow's and Tejas in Minneapolis until 1993
1988 - Founds Taste of the Nation event benefiting Share Our Strength
1990 - Courvoisier's Book of the Best names Routh Street the fifth best restaurant in the US
1991 - Received the James Beard Foundation's award for Best Chef: Southwest and is the first Texan inducted into the foundation's Who's Who of Food and Beverage in America
1993 - Publishes New Texas Cuisine
1994 - Opens Star Canyon, which was on the lists of "best new restaurants" in Esquire, Bon Appetit and Town and Country, and named one of the top five new restaurants in America by the James Beard Foundation
1997 - Publishes Tamales, and opens Aquaknox, a global seafood restaurant named best new restaurant by Food and Wine
1998 - Playboy names Star Canyon one of America's top twenty-five restaurants; Pyles also receives the Humanitarian of the Year Award from Share Our Strength and publishes New Tastes from Texas
2000 - Publishes Southwestern Vegetarian
2003 - Founding concept chef for nationally acclaimed Dragonfly restaurant at Hotel ZaZa
2005 - "New Millennium Southwestern Cuisine" restaurant Stephan Pyles opens in Dallas