For the first time in its nearly 40-year history of building a notable collection of dependable, easygoing, family-friendly neighborhood restaurants, Adair Concepts is putting the spotlight on something it has always valued but rarely emphasized: chef-driven culinary offerings. To that end, the company (whose robust roster includes restaurants Skeeter’s Mesquite Grill, Los Tios, Adair Kitchen, Adair Downtown, Bebidas, Eloise Nichols, Betsy’s at Evelyn’s Park and Buffalo Grille restaurants) has hired a culinary director to elevate kitchen operations and menus across the Adair portfolio.
In that new role, Mexico-City born chef Diego Fernandez, whose enviable resume includes stints with some of the most recognized names in hospitality as well as Michelin-star restaurant experience. Fernandez will bring distinction to Adair Concepts by enhancing its culinary vision with new and creative dishes. The more chef-led approach includes upgrading sourcing and food quality, maintaining operational consistency, and building a skilled kitchen team whose efforts will be synonymous with Adair Concepts’ reputation for genuine, familial hospitality.
“I am proud to be associated with a longtime family business that not only has earned a remarkable reputation by its beloved customers but is entrenched in the fabric of our community. Those are keys to success any business would value but that are especially important to restaurants,” Fernandez said. “I look forward to a long-lived relationship with Adair, as both a Houston leader and a Texas business growing its reputation and brand recognition.”
Beyond overseeing kitchen operations across the board, Fernandez’s creative hand will most immediately be felt in both locations of Adair Kitchen, where he’s worked to elevate the dinner menus of both locations with refreshed and newly added dishes that encompass premium ingredients. Over 80 percent of the evening menu has been reimagined, with new dishes including citrus-cured snapper with watermelon aguachile; baby romaine salad with green goddess dressing, breakfast radish, parm, sourdough crouton; coffee-rubbed angus steak with cranberry reduction; ribeye cutlets with olive tapenade; porchetta with salsa verde and braised collards; and gemelli pasta with Italian sausage, roasted fennel, peas and triple-cream cheese. These additions, along with the transition from counter service during breakfast and lunch to full waiter service in the evenings, solidify Adair Kitchen as a sophisticated neighborhood dinner destination. The menu of American bistro classics at Eloise Nichols is set for an infusion next.
Fernandez comes to his position well equipped with training and experience that makes him a perfect match for the responsibilities of his new role. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America (he began his degree work at the San Antonio campus and completed in New York), Fernandez has enjoyed an exceptional career. His resume includes work at two The Alinea Group restaurants in Chicago (at super chef Grant Achatz’s original Alinea, the famed Michelin Guide 3-star restaurant, and at the more casual sister outpost Roister) and at the upscale seasonal restaurant Quince in San Francisco, also a Michelin 3-star restaurant. Other hospitality experience came from a five-year commitment to Ritz-Carlton hotels and resorts in Florida as well as two years with Lone Mountain Ranch at the Montana resort’s upscale farm-to-table restaurant.
The Mexico City-born Fernandez spent his formative years in San Antonio where his family moved when he was 12. In 2014 he returned to the Alamo City to work on a restaurant project with his father Rene Fernandez, a chef wh owns the popular Azuca Nuevo Latino restaurant. Before joining Adair Concepts, Fernandez spent time on the culinary research and development team for Pappas Restaurants. At Adair Concepts, Fernandez heads up territory both familiar and uncharted for the company.
“While the intent is to take things up a culinary notch, we will always strive for excellent, consistent and approachable hospitality,” said Adair Concepts creative director Katie Barnhart. “With chef Diego we have both: a culinary director with one foot in the most impressive realms of dining and the other solidly planted in guest hospitality. It’s an exciting moment for us and we’re proud he’s now part of the Adair Concepts family.”
The Adairs have long wanted to create a culinary director position, but Fernandez’s appointment comes at a particularly pivotal time for the family-run business. From the humble beginnings of Skeeter’s Mesquite Grill in 1988, which is now a West U neighborhood institution, the Adair holdings have grown to include six Los Tios Mexican Restaurants locations, two Adair Kitchen and Buffalo Grille restaurants, and self-made indie operations including Eloise Nichols, Adair Downtown, Bebidas and Betsy’s at Evelyn’s Park. The company is also expanding for the first time beyond its Houston roots with plans to open branches of Adair Kitchen and Los Tios restaurants in San Antonio and being a new presence in the Hill Country town of Fredericksburg with an outpost of Los Tios.
