Stephan Pyles, a 5 th generation Texan and founding father of Southwestern Cuisine, is a celebrated chef, cookbook author, philanthropist, and educator. He has created 24 restaurants in 7 cities over the past 35 years.

Pyles was the first person in the Southwest to win the James Beard Award for Best Chef and was the first Texan inducted into The Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who of Food and Wine in America. In addition to his wins, Chef Pyles has been nominated another 12 times by the Beard Foundation for Outstanding Chef in America and has had 6 restaurants that were finalists for Best New Restaurant in America. He has cooked for dignitaries and celebrities world-wide including 5 American presidents, 6 First Ladies, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, of England. He has been named Chef of the Year by the Esquire Magazine, The Dallas Morning News, D Magazine, the Dallas Observer and the Dallas Voice.

Chef Pyles has authored four highly successful cookbooks and hosted two seasons of the Emmy-award winning PBS series New Tastes from Texas. He has received the AAA 5-Diamond Award and was only the 10 th chef be inducted into Nation’s Restaurant News’ Menu Masters Hall of Fame.

Chef Pyles was a cuisine consultant to American Airlines for 22 years and has consulted for the Dallas Museum of Art, a host of hotels, and other corporate entities such as Verizon Wireless and Deloitte & Touche.

A tireless philanthropist, Pyles is a founding board member of Share Our Strength, America’s largest hunger relief organization. He is a recipient of the organization’s Humanitarian of the Year Award for his work with their No Kid Hungry Campaign, having helped raised $3 million over the past 30 years. He is a life board member of the North Texas Food Bank and has served on the board of Goodwill Industries and The Art Institute. He co-founded The Hunger Link, Dallas’ perishable food program that acts as a conduit between restaurants and hotels and ministries and soup kitchens. Through his Stephan Pyles Culinary Scholarship, he has awarded $250,000 to culinary students in Texas.