About Chef Dawn
Traveling the world with the USA’s Track & Field team ignited Chef Dawn Burrell’s deep love for the language of food. The 2000 Olympian eventually traded in her track spikes for a full-time culinary career, cutting her teeth with everyone from Chef Tom Aikens in London to Houston’s Monica Pope before landing a gig with Uchi Houston — a move that led to a sous-chef position at its award-winning sister restaurant Uchiko in Austin. An Executive Chef title at modern Southern restaurant Kulture followed, where she honed her signature “global comfort” cooking style.
During the pandemic, Chef Dawn collaborated with numerous chefs in Houston and around the country in Zoom-led cooking classes and her Pivot meal delivery service, creating new income streams for food and beverage workers displaced by COVID from their usual work.
She is proud to have represented Houston as a competitor and guest judge for Top Chef and an invited chef at Platform by James Beard Foundation.
Exciting things are on the horizon.
Come join me.
JOIN ME FOR SUPPER
Nowhere Somewhere Supper Club
July 15, 2023 | 7 - 11 pm
Sugarland, TX
Nowhere Somewhere Supper Club is an extraordinary culinary and cultural experience featuring Houston's top food and beverage talent.
Experience an intimate, one-of-a-kind supper club with me and fellow chefs Biggie Cruz and Paul Qui along with mixologist, Sarah Troxell.
Start the night with outstanding cocktails and Gølfstrommen’s sustainable sushi before sitting down to a multi-course feast, featuring live music and performances, made all the more intriguing by the secret location.
A portion of event proceeds will benefit Friends of The James Beard Foundation, a nonprofit organization with a mission to celebrate, support, and elevate the people behind America’s food culture and champion a standard of good food anchored in talent, equity, and sustainability.
Shh! IT’S A SECRET
Where in the world is Dawn Burrell?
Aug 2023
Getting my traveling gear ready and heading overseas for an adventure with one of my culinary heroes. And that’s all I can say… for now.
Stay tuned for more - I cannot wait to share tales and flavors from this life-altering experience with you.
GET READY TO PARTY
Southern Smoke Festival
Oct 13-14, 2023 | Houston, TX
I can’t wait to party with you at Southern Smoke Festival 2023! Will you be there?
It’s a two-day extravaganza in Downtown Houston, Texas, Oct. 13-14, with more than 60 of the best chefs and culinary personalities (like me!) taking part in the fun. You can be eating food made by some amazing folks while sipping plenty of great wine, spirits, and beer, under a beautiful fall sky.
Proceeds from Southern Smoke Festival 2023 go to supporting food and beverage workers in crisis nationwide through emergency relief funding and access to mental health services. That means your purchase is going to help someone pay the bills, get current on their rent, and buy groceries during some of their worst times.
COME TO DINNER
Kinship & Freedom Dinner Series
Fall 2023 – Spring 2024 | Houston, TX
The soundtrack of my journey has been freedom. I played by all the rules but now celebrate bending and breaking them, throwing off every life-limiting idea which tethered me. I am grateful for the wisdom, candor, and culinary magic I’ve encountered on this road and I want to share that with you.
I’ve invited my kitchen kindred spirits to town for dinner. Come meet Chefs Paola Velez, Tiffany Derry, Nina Compton and more in a celebration of radical friendship and growth.
Paola Velez
Tiffany Derry
Nina Compton
Follow my journey.
