Details on the way.
UPDATE: Just off the phone with Tristan Simon. He says Michael Brown, the chef he recruited from Red-O in Los Angeles to open Alma, has been out of the restaurant for six weeks. “Mike had some private personal and family issues,” Simon said. “He had to go back to Los Angeles to deal with them.”
The good news is that Simon already had backup in place. Two years ago, Simon hired Anastacia Quinones to be sous chef at Victor Tango’s. “We moved AQ over to Alma when we opened,” Simon said. “I thought she was too young (30) to be executive chef, but she has proven to be a formidable talent. She has been cooking at Alma for the last six weeks.”
Yeah, a chick chef! AQ is the first female chef in a Consilient restaurant. Quinones is from Dallas and grew up about 2 houses down from Alma. She attended culinary school at CIA in New York and moved to San Francisco where she was sous chef at Jardiniere, the restaurant cheffed by Traci Des Jardins. She moved back to Dallas a little over two and a half years ago. “Her heritage and her passion is real Mexican food,” Simon said. “She already has her fingerprints all over this menu. We are rolling out her new menu tomorrow.”
