Mike Stites and Evan Pemberton met in 2017 in Stephan Pyles’ kitchen at Flora Street Cafe. Stites had come up from Corpus Christi the year before to go to culinary school and work for Wolfgang Puck. Pemberton grew up in Dallas and already had plenty of miles on his knives. The two became friends, and over time the friendship settled into something closer to mentor and student.
In 2019 they moved to Chicago together to cook at Roister, the Alinea Group’s open-hearth restaurant in Fulton Market. A year later they went their separate ways.
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