World-Renowned Chef April Bloomfield Joins MML Hospitality in Austin
The celebrated chef behind New York’s most iconic gastropubs now leads the kitchens at The Driskill, Jeffrey’s and Pecan Street Cafe
Texans just pulled another underrated top chef. In what Austin-based hospitality group McGuire Moorman Lambert Hospitality would likely agree is a coup, April Bloomfield has joined the fold as executive chef. Starting this summer, the highly regarded chef—known for rustic, tip-to-tail cooking that, she might argue, centers on both meat and vegetables—will turn her attention to Sixth Street.
Specifically, the luxurious and historic The Driskill hotel bar and 1886 Cafe & Bakery will now operate under the direction of MML, leaving Bloomfield to work her magic curating hearty fare at the storied (reportedly haunted) hotel. At the same time, the Birmingham, England-raised chef will be tasked with breathing a bit of new life into Pecan Street Cafe and Jeffrey’s steakhouse. MML also owns and operates restaurants in Houston, Aspen and Menlo Park.
For Austin, a city used to excellent dining from MML at popular restaurants like Clark’s Oyster Bar, Swedish Hill, Rosie’s Wine Bar and Elizabeth Street Cafe, this represents a potential leap forward. Pecan Street Cafe, Jeffrey’s and The Driskill, already local favorite places to grab a bite, could easily become destination restaurants in Bloomfield’s hands.
For Bloomfield, a chef whose meat-centered creations have dazzled food critics and diners alike, Austin may represent a sweet spot for eaters who are still devoted to meats in all forms as the primary component of a satisfying meal as well as those who seek out lighter plant-based options.
April Bloomfield’s stellar chops
Bloomfield’s accolades include half a dozen James Beard Award nominations for Best Chef, beginning in 2008 until her win in 2014 for work at New York’s Spotted Pig. She led the West Village gastropub and Manhattan’s The Breslin when each earned Michelin stars, held from 2009 to 2016 and 2010, respectively. Bloomfield will continue as a chef partner at her highly regarded Fort Greene, Brooklyn bistro, Sailor, a restaurant that landed in the prestigious Michelin guide last year. She has also been behind ventures like Coombeshead Farm, a 66-acre, five-room bed-and-breakfast cum dairy farm in Cornwall, England.
Bloomfield is the author of two cookbooks, “A Girl and Her Pig,” and “A Girl and Her Greens,” each showing a devotion to simple, seasonal fare prepared with finesse and a sincere love for every stinky, sticky, savory bit of meat or rooty, bitter, knobby piece of vegetable. Many of those characteristics transform into something else entirely through Bloomfield’s recipes.
Bloomfield turned heads with her excellent kitchen at the Spotted Pig, seeing it to rave reviews and a warm embrace from the food community until multiple accusations of sexual harassment against restaurateur Ken Friedman and investor Mario Batali in 2017 led to its closure in 2020. Bloomfield told the media that she felt manipulated by her partners at the popular eatery but accepted responsibility for failure to protect and support staff. Since the closure, the chef has gotten back to work in small ventures across America and her native England.
From cop to cook
A workhorse from the start, Bloomfield turned to cooking after being rejected from the police force in England at age 16. After turning to the kitchen in an attempt to find her path, Bloomfield said that it took her ten years to truly relish work as a cook. Around that decade mark of experience, Bloomfield worked at London’s River Cafe—a then recently Michelin-starred restaurant—running under the direction of Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, two women with a contagious, generous passion for Italian-influenced food. Top Chef host Gail Simmons called River Cafe the epicenter of the food world in London at the time.
Bloomfield has recalled applying to the police force again a decade after her first rejection, but backed out upon learning she’d be placed with the Transport Police—an assignment she found unappealing. Soon after, she moved to New York to begin work on the Spotted Pig.
Her food has been described as surprising, and she has called her favorite dishes simple, but not easy. Her burgers are the stuff of legend. If it rubs off, her work in Austin will make dinner reservations that much tougher to secure, as the cook creates landmarks from already beloved restaurants.