In Bloomfield’s new role, she’ll oversee the McGuire Moorman Lambert Hospitality group, which is behind a collection of restaurants that include an oyster bar, a bakery, a hamburger joint, a sushi spot, a cafe, and a Tex-Mex diner in locations around Austin, Houston, Aspen, Colorado, and San Francisco, with something to open to Dallas too. Her first focus will be revamping California-inspired Pecan Square Cafe and fifty-year-old fine-dining steakhouse Jeffrey’s in Austin, as reported by Texas Monthly. The company also announced that it would be taking over historic Austin hotel the Driskill and its two dining rooms — currently the Driskill Bar and 1886 Cafe & Bakery — which is owned by Hyatt Hotels Corporation.
“April has a true sense of hospitality that’s behind the cooking,” McGuire told Texas Monthly. “It’s not just cooking for ego or cooking for what looks good on the plate.”
Bloomfield told Eater she’s “excited about today’s announcement.” She continued, “Gabriel and I remain business partners and I am absolutely not leaving Sailor and will continue as chef partner here.” MML issued the following statement Tuesday morning.
“This June, Bloomfield joins MML Hospitality, one of the country’s most successful and influential hospitality groups, as Executive Chef. In her role, Bloomfield brings exceptional expertise and experience to the group’s nationwide operations. Bloomfield will play a pivotal role in upcoming MML projects, including the multi-dimensional development, Sixth & Blanco, designed by Pritzker award-winning firm Herzog & de Meuron, that encompasses luxury retail and hospitality in Austin’s Clarksville neighborhood.
Longtime admirers of Bloomfield’s cooking, MML’s partners demonstrate a similar intuition for knowing what diners want. Bloomfield brings her deep understanding of seasonal produce and tip-to-tail butchery to MML, while mentoring its roster of rising culinary talent, initially focusing on Pecan Square Cafe, Jeffrey’s, Josephine House, Howard’s and Rosie’s. Her role as Chef Partner of Happy Cooking Hospitality’s celebrated Brooklyn restaurant Sailor will continue and she will remain a presence there.
Bloomfield’s return to Sailor was a big deal for the New York restaurant world. Known for her memorable meat-centric fare, Bloomfield steered Sailor, part of Happy Cooking Hospitality, which includes West Village staples like Joseph Leonard, Jeffrey’s Grocery, and Fairfax, as a lower-key affair than her Manhattan restaurants from years earlier. In opening in Brooklyn, she reemerged on the scene to mostly celebration after being caught in the middle of one of the biggest restaurant scandals of the #MeToo era. It led her to closing restaurants including the Spotted Pig and others she ran in partnership with Ken Friedman.
When Sailor was deemed one of the year’s best new restaurants in the country, Eater noted “it represents the return of chef April Bloomfield to New York and the British-inflected cooking that made her name.” It has been celebrated for its “unfussy elegance, coaxing complex flavors from humble ingredients.”
In the announcement this week, Texas Monthly wrote “New York City’s April Bloomfield is one of the most talented chefs in the country. Period — no qualification.”
