Chef Stephen Rogers
Stephen Rogers Chef/Owner
Gemma
Gemma represents a coming home of sorts. Its executive chef and co-owner, Stephen Rogers, grew up here in Dallas. He moved back with his wife, Allison Yoder (who runs the front of the house and bar program) and their twin boys to settle back into the community he left years ago.
Rogers never planned to be a chef. But after San Francisco’s renowned restaurant critic Michael Bauer praised his cuisine at the Napa Valley restaurant, PRESS, where he was filling in until a permanent chef could be hired, he stayed in the kitchen. “At that point, I realized I wasn’t going anywhere,” Rogers says. When he graduated from Highland Park High School in 1988, Rogers’ sights were set on being a professional musician. He had been playing piano since he was five, which was also about the time he started to cook breakfast for himself (he usually woke up before his two older brothers and younger sister). His plan: to major in organ and minor in piano, and eventually get a teaching job at a college.
The first stop on his academic journey: the prestigious Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where he attended on scholarship. Next, the exclusive Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. He spent the last two years of undergrad at The Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University in Bloomington, considered to be one of the most esteemed music schools in the country. He graduated in 1993.
Between classes and performances, Rogers always worked in restaurants. “The cash was good, I loved being around food, and I enjoyed the buzz of working at night,” he says. After graduation, he moved to Philadelphia where a church organist job was waiting for him, as well as his future wife, Allison Yoder. After that, he got a contract with the Virginia Opera’s apprentice program, and when it ended, he moved to New York to pursue his dream of being a professional musician. He also got a job at the Upper East Side French bistro, Quatorze, as a server. “Working here, I was really inspired to cook,” he says. “They’d have blanquette de veau on the menu, and I’d come home and say, ‘I’m making blanquette de veau today.’ That’s how I taught myself to cook. I’d make cassoulet one day, coq au vin the next. You name it, I made it.”
He got his master’s degree in piano accompanying at the Manhattan School of Music and afterwards, was hired as an adjunct professor at Manhattanville College. It was a big step towards realizing his dream, but it no longer felt right. He missed restaurants. He loved to cook. He did a stage with Tom Valenti of the Manhattan bistro, Ouest.
By now he had been in New York for 10 years and was ready for something different. So and he and Yoder moved to Miami, now with a new goal: to open their own restaurant one day. Over the next two years, Rogers worked as a server, then a manager, at four different restaurants. But he kept finding himself drifting back into the kitchen. “My goal was to get a line cook position somewhere so I could really learn to cook,” he says. “Since we were going to own our own restaurant one day, the more experience I have in all departments, the better off I’ll be.” He never did. When Yoder took a job at PRESS in Napa Valley, he went with her, but never pursued his line cook dreams. He didn’t have to.
When PRESS needed help in the kitchen, Rogers tied on an apron. When the menu needed revamping, he pitched in and offered suggestions. He oversaw food costs and inventory, and eventually took over the management of the kitchen. He had no intention of staying. But after Michael Bauer positively reviewed PRESS (“...in many ways, it’s the ideal Napa Valley restaurant,” he said) then put it on a “Top 100 Bay Area Restaurants” list, Rogers had no choice. “I realized then I was the chef at the restaurant,” he says.
After a spectacular seven-year run at PRESS, Rogers and Yoder realized it was to time to open their own place – back in Dallas, where he still has family and where he began cooking with his grandmother, shelling black-eyed peas and pecans from their trees out back while she stirred up a batch of cornbread.
“It feels good to be home,” he says.
Opened in December of 2013, Gemma has received rave reviews by diners and restaurant critics alike, including being praised as one of Dallas's top wine experiences by Dallas Morning News, "Best Service" - D Magazine, "Most Anticipated Restaurant Openings of 2013" - Eater Dallas, "Dallas' 10 Best Restaurants" - Zagat, "5 Most Exciting Restaurants in Dallas" - Modern Luxury Magazine, "Dallas Restaurants You Should Be Eating At Right Now - Summer 2014" - Dallas Observer – “Best New Restaurants 2014”, D Magazine - “Top 10 Best Restaurants in Texas 2015”, Texas Monthly – sought after 4 star review, Dallas Morning News - “Best New Restaurant”, Dallas Morning News - “Dallas Goes Local”, Travel & Leisure Magazine, “Best New Restaurants in Three Cities”, The Week - and more.
Gemma – http://gemmadallas.com/ - 2323 N. Henderson Ave. #109 – Dallas, Texas 75206 – 214.370.9426
