While local chefs have their heads down striving to earn a Michelin star, Dallas chef Dean Fearing earned shine of a different kind.
On Oct. 8, 2025, the Culinary Institute of America created a “walk of fame” on its campus in New York and recognized 21 of its alumni with a star on the sidewalk.
It’s like the Hollywood walk of fame, but for chefs.
Honorees were chosen by the Culinary Institute of America’s board of trustees, and picked because of their impact on the food, beverage and hospitality industries, a spokeswoman said.
Restaurant News
Dallas chef Fearing was called the “father of Southwestern cuisine,” according to the Culinary Institute of America, where he trained to become a chef in the late 1970s. Dallas diners know him today as the chef-owner of Fearing’s, the restaurant in the Ritz-Carlton in Uptown. Much of his career was spent at the revered Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek. Fearing is also a cookbook author and TV personality.
The Culinary Institute of America honored 21 chefs, including Dallas chef Dean Fearing, for their work in the restaurant and beverage industries. Fearing is the chef-owner of Fearing’s at the Ritz-Carlton in Dallas.
Tanner Townsend
Fearing looks back on the two years he spent at the CIA nearly 50 years ago. ″When we went to school, it was all French cuisine,” he said. He and his peers pushed the boundaries of French cooking.
“This was us, breaking the mold, and moving into American cuisine.” Fearing is known today for his tortilla soup, barbecue glazed quail, maple-peppercorn buffalo, chicken-fried lobster and the like.
Related
The inaugural class of chefs constitute an impressive roster of talent. The Culinary Institute of America’s honorees included:
The late Anthony Bourdain, who wrote the book Kitchen Confidential and appeared on the TV show No Reservations before his death in 2018Charlie Palmer, a hotelier and chef whose restaurants span from Napa Valley to New YorkSara Moulton, who calls Julia Child one of her mentors and has worked at Gourmet magazine and Good Morning AmericaLarry Forgione, the chef “who started American cuisine for all of us,” according to FearingGreg Achatz, whose restaurant Alinea in Chicago earned 3-star Michelin status for over a decade
Fearing described the day as a coming-together of friends who spent the past few decades cooking all over the country and world.
“It was a revelation, for the school to honor us all together, with the thought of American cuisine,” Fearing said.
Alumnae were inducted into the college’s Hall of Fame. Additional people will be given stars annually, a spokeswoman said.
Visitors to the Culinary Institute of America can see the walk of fame in front of the Tim Ryan Student Commons, in Hyde Park, N.Y.
Dining and Cooking