New Fort Worth museum cafe will take Texas food and ‘put a Wolfgang Puck touch to it’
Café Modern’s new team and chef bring Hollywood style to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
The catering company named for Oscars chef Wolfgang Puck was officially designated Tuesday as the new Modern operator, with Puck veteran Jett Mora becoming the Modern’s new executive chef.
The scenic restaurant inside the contemporary art landmark, 3200 Darnell St., will reopen with the same schedule as before — daily lunch, Friday dinner and one of the city’s most popular weekend brunches.
“We’d like to take everything that’s great about the Modern and put a Wolfgang Puck touch to it,” Mora said, referring to the 80-year-old celebrity chef known for Spago in Hollywood.
The menu will include a lot of local and Texas ingredients, Mora said, and he’d like to include some dishes with Tex-Mex flavors.
Mora, a former commercial banker, has been with the Puck catering company in California 10 years at locations including the red|seven restaurant at the Pacific Design Center and the company complex at the Hollywood & Highland center.
The Puck company runs restaurants at the Nasher Sculpture Center and the Perot Museum in Dallas, and until last year, it operated Five Sixty by Wolfgang Puck in Reunion Tower.
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But Mora has never worked in Texas, although he knew Five Sixty’s chefs.
“This is an experience, seeing all this tremendous art for the first time,” he said Monday on his first museum visit as the cafe chef.
“This is such a beautiful setting. And the nighttime vibe is so different. We want to get people out here for dinner to see how beautiful it is here at night.”
Work has just begun on the Modern menu, he said.
(Several restaurants have delayed spring or summer menus because the February freeze and the COVID-19 pandemic have both restricted availability of Texas vegetables, fruits and some beef.)
Mora grew up traveling with his father in southern California and remembers the region’s tradition of roadside-Americana diners and comfort food.
When the Great Recession hit, he left banking for culinary school.
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“The recession really opened my eyes as to what makes me happy and drives my passions,” he said. “The dinner table is where I think I can get folks talking and make a contribution.”
He becomes only the third chef at the Modern, succeeding founding chef Dena Peterson Shaskan and “Chopped” winner Denise Shavandy. (Both worked for a different management company.)
“I want to honor those who came before, and I know they will be a great resource,” Mora said. “What’s great about Fort Worth is that it’s very supportive, I’m hearing, and the industry is very connected.”
The Modern also will resume its schedule of weddings, special events and caterings under General Manager Roxanne McLarry, a 17-year Modern staffer.
No reopening date has been announced; 817-840-2157, themodern.org.
This story was originally published March 30, 2021 at 9:00 AM.
