Pop-Up Dinner: March 10, 2013

Tickets on Sale Soon for March 10 Pop-Up Dinner With FT33’s Matt McCallister

We are pleased to announce that the guest chef for Cafe Momentum's 19th Pop-Up Dinner is Matt McCallister. The pop-up dinner takes place March 10, 2013 at 6 pm, at FT33; located at 1617 Hi Line Drive. Seats for the $100 four-course dinner can be reserved at http://cafemomentum.org/. 

About Graham Dodds

      FT33 is Chef Matt McCallister’s first solo venture, opened on October 13, 2012 in

Dallas and serving “season‐inspired modern cuisine.” He showcases the highest‐quality

products, treats them with respect, and strives for innovation. “I don’t print my menu

until I know which ingredients are best that day,” he explains. “That should be the

natural progression, rather than do the reverse, creating a dish and forcing whatever

ingredients are available into it.” McCallister also has a penchant for creating

unorthodox pairings of ingredients. “I always prepare a few dishes that are risky, which

challenge both me and my customers in the best way possible,” he says.

Before becoming a thoughtfully progressive culinarian in the Dallas dining

scene, McCallister was torn between the visual and culinary arts. He ultimately chose

cooking as a career, even after attending the Metropolitan Arts Institute in Phoenix for

fine arts in 2000. “Art was a passion that always competed with food, but cooking gives

me an opportunity to blend the two,” says the Scottsdale, AZ, native, whose artistic

sensibilities were influenced by his designer mother and scientific curiosity can be

attributed to his research engineer father.

       In 2006, McCallister applied for a job at Stephan Pyles Restaurant in Dallas. With

no formal training—“I didn’t even know how to cook a beurre blanc,” he admits—the

aspiring chef began working the garde manger station at the renowned temple of fine

Southwestern cuisine. He rapidly ascended the kitchen hierarchy, becoming sous chef in

just over a year and executive chef within three years. Pyles, who was thoroughly

impressed with McCallister’s “raw and natural ability,” exposed his protégé to a wide

variety of cuisines beyond Southwestern, and McCallister had the opportunity to work

in revered kitchens across the country as a result: José André’s minibar in Washington,

D.C.; Mark Vetri’s eponymous restaurant in Philadelphia; Sean Brock’s McCrady’s in

Charleston, SC; Grant Achatz’s Alinea in Chicago; and Daniel Boulud’s Daniel in New

York. Upon returning to Dallas in 2011, McCallister worked with two design friends to

open Campo Modern Country Bistro in Dallas, for which he consulted on the menu of

rustically elegant nose‐to‐tail cuisine and inspired housemade salumi and charcuterie.

Extending the reach of his food philosophy, the chef and his wife founded Chefs for Farmers 

a grassroots organization supporting local farmers by introducing their

products to chefs, and vice versa. He is also a member of Foodways Texas and Southern

Foodways Alliance, and he actively participates in raising funds for Meals on Wheels.

McCallister earned a Mastering Wine Certificate from the Culinary Institute of America

in 2011.

        When he’s not in the kitchen, the 31‐year‐old chef/restaurateur spends most of

his time with wife, Iris, and their young daughter, Ella, who is his constant companion

at the farmers’ market. He can also occasionally be found foraging for various wild

herbs and vegetables in and around Dallas.