The Mayor’s House, the much-anticipated restaurant set to open in Oak Cliff, will be launching this year without the culinary leadership of Chef Graham Dodds. The two will be parting ways due to construction delays and a timing conflict. The restaurant, co-owned by husband-and-wife team A.J. Gilbert and Martha Madison, continues to move forward with opening plans for 4th quarter, just in time for holiday season, and the new chef will be announced in the coming weeks.
Says Gilbert, “Scheduling restaurant openings are a challenge, especially when there is a huge construction project turning a beautiful historic house built in 1910 into a contemporary, multi-room restaurant with a bar, banquet room, and state-of-the-art kitchen. Chef Graham is an all-around talented chef, and we wish him the best on his new journey.”
Madison and Gilbert are no strangers to the restaurant scene. The two owned and operated six Luna Park restaurants in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City under The Luna Park Group. In addition to her work in the hospitality industry, Madison, a Texas native, has a longtime career in acting, playing the character “Belle Black” on NBC’s “Days of Our Lives,” one of the longest-running scripted television programs in the world. The couple recently moved to Dallas from California and are pleased to soon be a part of Bon Appétit’s “2019 Restaurant City of the Year.”
“We are amazed by the top culinary talent and exceptional restaurants that Dallas has to offer. Dallas truly is an extraordinary restaurant city, and we are excited – and anxious – to finally open our doors and invite everyone to experience The Mayor’s House. We hope that you will be just as impressed”, Madison tells us.
So where’s Graham going?
JC
Asking him now