2 popular chefs — Monica Greene and Blythe Beck — return to the kitchen
If there’s anything Texans are more loyal to than their sports teams, it may be their favorite chefs. Restaurants come and go, but if you find a cook who speaks to your palate, you’ll follow her anywhere.
So it is with Blythe Beck (famed for her “naughty recipes” at Central 214) who, in a pink coat with a butter obsession and throaty laugh, became a favorite Dallas culinary personality.
It’s been a few years since Beck puttered around her own kitchen, but she’s finally back in town … and for a limited time only.
That’s what the “LTO” at Kitchen LTO stands for: A pop-up, chef-driven concept in the Trinity Groves development that was the brainchild of Casie Caldwell. Caldwell holds competitions every four months or so to select the next face of the restaurant, and she tells me “Blythe was the winner by a landslide.”
Of course she was. “You know me — I don’t do anything green unless I deep fry it,” Beck laughs while discussing her menu, which always felt like home cooking elevated by quality ingredients and Beck’s assurance that it’s OK to gorge as long as the food tastes good. She’s bringing back some dishes that made her famous, like her “lettuce babies,” and some new items to delight and surprise her existing fans and hopefully recruit some new ones.
It’s ow open for lunch and dinner, and if you do nothing but try her deep-fried version of oysters Rockefeller, you’ll know her aesthetic immediately.
Greene at Pegaso Diner, top, and Beck at Kitchen LTO, above.
(Arnold Wayne Jones/Dallas Voice)
Another fave back in the kitchen is Monica Greene, whose concepts from Aca y Alla to Ciudad have made her the goddess of Mexican cuisine in Dallas for 30 years. If the name of her new place, Pegaso
Diner, sounds familiar, it’s because that’s what she dubbed her Downtown Dallas resto 10 years ago.
This concept — now in Fort Worth along Bluebonnet Circle near TCU — is more cafeteria style than fine dining, but that doesn’t affect the quality one bit. The menu features an array of enchiladas (some planned out for you, but also customizable by you), handmade margaritas and, frankly, the best refried beans I have ever tasted. In my life. Ever.
Doubt anyone can get that excited about refried beans? Just try them and tell me I’m lying. Good food is good food, and if anyone knows that, it’s Monica.
Kitchen LTO at Trinity Groves, 3011 Gulden Lane, ste. 108. KitchenLTO.com.
Pegaso Diner, 3516 Bluebonnet Circle, Fort Worth. PegasoDiner.com.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition October 3, 2014.