Brazilian-American chef Junior Borges, whose time in Dallas included working at lauded restaurants Uchi, FT33, Mirador and Meridian, has taken a job with an Austin-based restaurant group.
Borges will be chef-partner of Excelsior Hospitality, working with founder and Austin chef Nic Yanes, who he met a decade ago at Uchi.
Yanes’ company will open more restaurants in other Texas cities, most likely including Dallas-Fort Worth, Borges said. For now, Excelsior owns four concepts in Austin: northern Italian restaurant Juniper, two red-tablecloth joints called Uncle Nicky’s Italian Specialties, and Murray’s Tavern.
Borges will remain based in Dallas but is traveling back and forth to Austin regularly as executive chef of Excelsior’s highest-end restaurant, Juniper.
The company is actively looking for restaurant spaces in North Texas, Borges confirmed to The Dallas Morning News. It is likely that Borges might be able to flex his skills in Brazilian-American cuisine with Excelsior.
“There’s an opportunity we’re not quite ready to share yet,” Borges said in an interview the morning after he announced his new job on Instagram.
Excelsior also operates the food and beverage for indoor mini golf spot The Dirdie Birdie and pizza joint Hoboken Pie, but it does not own those companies.
Borges had been a free agent since he left Meridian, the high-end Brazilian-American restaurant that anchored the redo of The Village development in Dallas. The project was one of Dallas’ biggest restaurant construction renovations in decades.
Borges’ Meridian menu was his most exciting yet, a blend of his 20 years living in Brazil and 20 years living in the United States. Dishes like moqueca, a Brazilian stew, was a refined version of what Borges’ grandmother made. The house-made bread was legendary.
Meridian remained open after Borges left, but the website now marks it temporarily closed. Perhaps it was right to wonder: How could this Brazilian-American restaurant remain without its Brazilian-American inspiration?
Since Borges’ October 2023 departure from Meridian, we wondered where he’d end up next — and if his simple yet sophisticated style of food would make it to a Dallas dining room again.
“The next restaurant that is coming will have a lot of that Brazilian sensibility,” Borges said. “Because that’s who I am.”
Food & Wine highlighted Borges in a story about the world’s best “tastemakers” in spring 2024. Michelin will soon announce its inaugural round of Texas’ best restaurants. Borges won’t have a seat at that table (yet), but he’s ready.
“I fought for Michelin to come,” he says of the years-long conversations that took place behind closed doors between Texas convention and visitors’ bureaus and Michelin. Notable Texas chefs, including Borges, were brought into those talks.
“The time I was really pushing [for Michelin] was the first year at Meridian,” Borges said. He felt — and we agree — that Meridian might have received Michelin attention.
“Fast-forward to now, I don’t have a restaurant, so I missed this time around,” he said.
That could change in 2025.
He says of Michelin’s arrival in Texas and of his new role with Juniper in Austin: “We have to be the best versions of ourselves. ... To get better and evolve. And push for that next evolution.”
