Pyles, along with his colleagues Dean Fearing, Robert Del Grande and Anne Lindsay Greer, contributed to changes in the cuisine of the U.S. states of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.
He received classical training in voice and piano,[8] but preferred to apprentice in the kitchen of his family’s West Texas truck stop.
The James Beard Foundation called it one of the top five new restaurants in America, and it was well-reviewed in Bon Apetit, Esquire Magazine, Town and Country, Playboy and other publications.
[10] The September 1998 Food and Wine Magazine issue listed Star Canyon as the “quintessential Dallas restaurant.”[11] In 1997, Pyles opened AquaKnox, a global seafood restaurant.
[13] During this hiatus, he spent significant time in Latin America and the Eastern Mediterranean, including the Levant, Spain and India.
Stephan Pyles is a founding board member of Share Our Strength, America’s largest hunger relief organization.
Pyles founded Dallas’ Taste of the Nation event for the organization in 1988, raising over $1,500,000 for local ministries and food pantries.
He is currently Chief Culinary Advisor for Ventana by Buckner, a luxury senior living community in Dallas, Texas, where he also has 3 restaurants that carry his name.
In January 2020, Pyles transitioned from restaurant ownership and operations to consulting, license agreements and organizing culinary tours around the world.