While the Michelin Guide is intended to show travelers where to eat the best food in Texas, at least three standout chefs aren’t eligible for inclusion in 2026.
Manny Rodriguez/Special Contributor
Many fine-dining chefs who have been cooking in Dallas for decades waited years for the Michelin Guide to arrive in Texas. Once it did, in 2024, some of them didn’t have restaurants in North Texas for Michelin’s anonymous inspectors to visit.
How unjust, to wait so long and then miss out.
Most difficult, to me, was watching accolades roll in for excellent Dallas restaurants and seeing no mention of Stephan Pyles’ name associated with any of them. Pyles owned restaurants in Dallas for nearly 40 years and helped define the Modern Texas culinary movement.
For decades, we considered his restaurants among Dallas’ best: There was Routh Street Cafe, Star Canyon, Stephan Pyles, Flora Street Cafe and more.
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Pyles said in a Dallas Morning News interview when Michelin’s first Texas Guide was announced: “I knew it was just a matter of time before it made it to Texas.”
“I just hoped it had gotten here three to four years earlier,” Pyles said in 2024, then semiretired.
Chef Stephan Pyles is pictured in Flora Street Cafe, his last full-time fine-dining kitchen before he moved into restaurant consulting roles.
Ashley Landis/Staff Photographer
He spent years at the top of his game, then didn’t get a chance to cook for Michelin’s anonymous inspectors at the end of his career. Pyles closed fine-dining restaurant Flora Street Cafe in January 2020. Timing was bad for a potential Michelin accolade, but it was good otherwise: The restaurant industry nearly collapsed under the weight of the COVID-19 pandemic, and fine-dining restaurants were hit especially hard. Pyles unknowingly saved himself a lot of heartache.
In 2026, the third annual Michelin Guide in Texas will be announced Oct. 8. I predict three Dallas restaurants could win Michelin stars for the first time and four others might snag their first Bib Gourmand, the award for reasonably priced food.
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Another star chef whose restaurant won’t be part of the 2026 Guide is Dallas’ Matt McCallister, as he’s in the process of opening 22-seat tasting restaurant River Sing in Expo Park. It won’t be open before the Guide is announced.
McCallister’s food at erstwhile restaurants FT33, Filament and Homewood would be impressive enough to send Michelin judges his way. Another reason I’d like to see his food considered in the future is McCallister is a Pyles protégé.
Chef Matt McCallister plans to open River Sing in Dallas in late 2026.
Anja Schlein/The Dallas Morning News
If Pyles isn’t running Michelin-quality restaurants in Dallas anymore, perhaps his next generation of students can.
We’re also waiting to see if chef Junior Borges will return to Dallas kitchens. Influenced by chefs Missy Robbins and Tom Colicchio, Borges then moved to Dallas to work at Uchi, the most significant new restaurant in the region when it opened in 2015.
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Borges cooked in revered restaurants like FT33 and Mirador before opening Meridian, the restaurant in The Village that once carried his signature style: a mix of Brazilian and American food that had never been done in Dallas before.
Junior Borges moved to Dallas over a decade ago, first to work at Uchi.
Rose Baca/Staff Photographer
That still leaves Dallas without Borges’ food. He formerly worked with Excelsior Hospitality, a Texas company that has restaurants in Austin, Oklahoma City and Chicago. While Borges’ name is still on Chicago restaurant Nic + Junior’s, he’s not actively involved, he said.
Borges still lives in North Texas. Is he working on a restaurant in Dallas next?
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“It will happen,” Borges said. No timeline or other details were available yet.
After the new Texas Guide is announced Oct. 8, 2026, Michelin’s three-year contract in Texas ends. Five Texas visitors’ bureaus, Travel Texas and Michelin will now consider extending the contract.
Borges doesn’t want to miss out on Michelin altogether, especially since he plans to cook in Dallas again.
“My hope is Michelin re-signs,” he said, “and is here for a couple more years.”
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Want more on Michelin’s influence in Dallas-Fort Worth? Go to dallasnews.com/michelin.
Dining and Cooking