Chef Garreth Dickey joins Stephan Pyles team; chef Michael Ehlert moves to The Front Room, which will reconcept in May

There’s been some interesting chef motion in the restaurant backfield recently. It’s official: Earlier this week (January 20 at 5:30 p.m., just as the flu was taking hold), I was able to pre-confirm with a high-placed Consilient Hospitality exec that The Front Room, the all-day spot across from SMU and inside the Lumen Hotel, will be torn up for a top-to-bottom renovation in May.

“Graduation is a busy time for the Lumen,” the exec told me, “so we’ll wait till then.” Look for the Front Room to re-open with a new look, a new menu and a totally new feel that better reflects the careful, studied, seasonal cooking of Tim Bevins.

If you haven’t been to The Front Room recently, Bevins’ current menu is totally worth a visit. And it’s always a pleasure to be cared for by Robert Brown, The Front Room’s GM, who is one of the best hosts in Dallas.

And chef Michael Ehlert is now Bevins’ chef de cuisine at The Front Room. Ehlert moved over from sister restaurant Hibiscus and now orchestrates dinner service at The Front Room most nights.

Another notable chef on the move: Garreth Dickey, who’s work at Dish Restaurant wowed me a few months ago. (Those Acadian mussels are seared in my mind as one of the best veg dishes I ate last year.) Dickey joins the chef staff at Stephan Pyles next week. Pyles and Dickey go way back to the 1990s, when Dickey worked at Pyles’ runaway hit,  Star Canyon.