Chef Thomas Keller pops into Dallas, dines at Matt McCallister’s FT33

 

Celebrated chef Thomas Keller (center, in black) poses with FT33 staff after dinner at FT33 Friday night

Think Dallas isn’t on America’s culinary map? Think again. Just ask Thomas Keller, the power train behind celebrated restaurants such as the French Laundry in Napa and Per Se in NYC and the man who is often heralded as America’s best chef.

Keller can eat anywhere. Friday night, the celebrated chef had dinner at FT33, Matt McCallister’s design district restaurant that celebrates heritage and foraged like nobody else. House-cured hams hang in one corner of the kitchen, an immersion circulator purrs in another. In between, McCallister’s hands buzz the crowded air space,  plating, swiping, garnishing, inspecting.

Keller noticed. He notices everything.

“It was great,” Keller told me after his dinner, which included the charcuterie plate, gulf crab and lamb loin.  “Everything was great.” He was accompanied at dinner by two ladies, one of whom was Napa-and-Dallasite Cindy Rachofsky.