On the night Georgie earned its spot among Dallas’ top 10 restaurants, according to D Magazine, executive chef RJ Yoakum wasn’t celebrating. The restaurant landed its coveted spot on the magazine’s “50 Best Restaurants” list, earning the title of “hottest high-end restaurant in town, period.” But in that steely, pristine kitchen, the young chef was reeling.
“I was happy, but I wasn’t doing well personally,” he shares. “The day we heard we went from not even being in the top 50 at D Magazine to being number six was actually the day that I found out my grandma died.”
Behind closed doors, Yoakum was unraveling. His grandmother, who was his best friend, his ride to countless basketball practices, and his biggest fan, had passed. Her death unearthed another deep wound. In 2019, he lost his paternal aunt, Lynn. Together, alongside his working parents, they helped raise him. While Dallas buzzed about the young chef’s meteoric rise, he was quietly grieving the two women who shaped him into one of the city’s most celebrated names.
As a child, Lynn taught him to embrace foods he didn’t like by teaching him cooking techniques. “My aunt made me cook pot roast with her,” he recalls. “We made mashed potatoes instead of cooking whole potatoes; carrots glazed in honey and orange juice, which is a pretty classic combination. She would use a better red wine than just a boxed wine.”
Lynn offered step by step guidance, and she encouraged him to watch Julia Child. When Yoakum landed his first job in a kitchen as a dish washer, she bought him his first cookbook: The French Laundry Cookbook. “She [Lynn] opened the doors for everything that I’ve ended up doing,” he shares.
In 2023, at 29 years old, Yoakum arrived in Dallas with a résumé that preceded him. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, he trained in London, worked at Michelin-starred Angler, and spent three career-launching years at Thomas Keller’s esteemed French Laundry in Yountville. He brought with him the discipline that only a three-Michelin-starred kitchen could instill.
Hired as celebrity chef Curtis Stone’s executive sous chef at Georgie, Yoakum was thrust into leadership sooner than expected. By June, Stone and Georgie’s parent company, Travis Street Hospitality, had quietly parted ways, and Yoakum was named executive chef. “I wanted it all, but at the end of the day, was I ready yet? Was the team ready yet?”
Looking back, he marks this time as his “Bambi legs” moment. He was a big fish in a small pond, moving at hyperspeed without his leadership footing fully in place. “That year was really hard because I was young and eager and thought I could do what we did at the French Laundry, but I didn’t have the resources or the people to do that,” Yoakum says. “It wasn’t the French Laundry.”
Travis Street Hospitality officially announced Yoakum’s appointment in September 2023. In the kitchen, he ran a tight ship. Known for his intensity, Yoakum changed the menu monthly and often worked for weeks straight. What he had in caliber, he initially lacked in composure. “I had this mentality of ‘I’m this new young chef, and I can say and do whatever I want,’” he admits. “That was not the right way to go about things, and I maybe wasn’t the nicest.”
Beneath it all, comparison simmered. Dallas, he quickly learned, was a different beast. In San Francisco, heart and soul led the plate, while Dallas prized opulence and spectacle. After his arrival, acclaimed posts like Misti Norris’ Petra and the Beast, and Cry Wolf folded. Junior Borges exited Meridian, leaving Dallas-Fort Worth for Chicago. Yoakum’s ascent sparked hope that perhaps good food with heart and great hospitality could still thrive in Dallas. A nod during the inaugural Texas Michelin Guide announcement, Dallas hoped, would prove it so.
Georgie received a coveted invitation to the ceremony. On awards night, Dallas’ culinary elite filled Houston’s 713 Music Hall in their finest. Of the 15 Michelin Stars handed out that night, only Tatsu Dallas returned with the honor. Georgie received a Michelin recommendation. The punch was a wake up call. “I’m actually 80 days sober right now from alcohol,” Yoakum shared on June 4 from Georgie’s kitchen. “The stress was really hurting me.”
Yoakum hit the drawing board. Georgie evolved. Yoakum’s “Snacks,” once reserved for the tasting menu, are now available as a la carte bites. Pulling from his fine-dining training, Yoakum leans into nostalgia with deviled eggs, while potato churros channel memories of his aunt and grandmother.
“I was the pickiest eater in the family, but [my aunt] didn’t think it was because I didn’t like food; she just thought maybe my parents weren’t that good at cooking,” he says. “How can I turn something I don’t like, like a churro because it’s too sweet, into potato chips and onion dip, because that’s what my grandma and I like? We would always fight over the folded chips.”
Yoakum runs his kitchen like a sports team, with no shortage of analogies. “The middle part, what I’m going through right now, is the best part,” he says. “It’s not the end result, like getting the Michelin star or getting nominated for a James Beard Award… it’s the middle part—the grind, the failure, the missed game-winning shot, the bad service. Then you go back the next day and you nail it.”
Georgie’s kitchen is collaborative. Chef de cuisine Reilly Brown echoes Yoakum’s pedigree with his own five-year tenure at Napa Valley’s Press Restaurant, under Philip Tessier. Sous chef Mariana Aguayo’s Argentinian roots shine in Georgie’s bread. Yoakum is as much a student as he is a teacher. “If I can’t learn at least one or two things from any of my staff in a day, then I’m wrong.”
The first-time executive chef began his journey filled with bold ambitions: a James Beard nomination for Best Emerging Chef, a top-five ranking in D Magazine, five stars in Texas Monthly, a Michelin star, and recognition as Food & Wine’s Best New Chef. Many of these he did accomplish.
While Georgie doesn’t have a Michelin star yet, Yoakum joins the likes of Lagniappe Bakehouse’s Kaitlin Guerin, Mawn’s Phila Lorn, NIMKI’s Nikhil Naiker, and Chatham’s Jane Sacro as a nominee for the Beard Awards Best Emerging Chef. A winner will be named during the ceremony on Monday, June 16 at the Lyric Opera House in Chicago.
Inside Georgie’s kitchen, Yoakum is steering another shift. Members of his staff are graduating to go on to chef de cuisine and executive chef roles of their own. “The work we put in has weight,” he says proudly. “It means something to work at Georgie. It means something to work with me. It might not always be fun for them, but they get better.”
For the self-proclaimed nomad, North Texas has become home. Yoakum’s long-term goal is to run a 30-seat restaurant of his own, in Dallas. For now, he’s deep in the day-to-day refining both his craft and team.
“I don’t want to leave anything on the table,” he says. “I don’t want to have regrets, like, I could have been better.”
Georgie, 4514 Travis St. Ste. 132, Dallas, georgiedallas.com
