North Louisiana chef creating a buzz in Austin

A Bienville Parish native is creating art with food at an Austin area hotel.

Ruston High School graduate and Mount Lebanon native Patrick Newman was recently named Executive Chef and Director of Food and Beverage at Sonesta Bee Cave. Sonesta is the first hotel in the Bee Cave area, an Austin suburb, having opened on July 5.

This isn’t Newman’s first restaurant gig.

After graduating from Ruston High and taking some time off to discover himself, Newman decided to go to culinary school.

“My mom told me I needed to figure out what I was going to do with myself, so I told her I wanted to go to the Louisiana Culinary Institute. Because of some trouble I had been in, she told me I couldn’t stay in Louisiana. I had some friends who talked about Johnson & Wales, so that’s where I went” he said.

Newman graduated from Johnson & Wales University in Charleston, S.C. in 1999 with a degree in Applied Science in Culinary Arts. While at Johnson & Wales he gained valuable knowledge and kitchen experience and became the youngest Executive Sous Chef at The Mills House in historic downtown Charleston.

After leaving The Mills House, Newman made his way back to Louisiana to become the Executive Sous Chef at the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans.

Newman received his first dose of Texas when he became the Chef de Cuisine that opened the Hilton America in Houston. He would later move on to become the Executive Sous Chef at the Intercontinental Houston at the Galleria, running Down Home Catering and serving as Executive Chef at the Intercontinental Stephen F. Austin before making his latest move to Sonesta Bee Cave.

Newman credits Peter Laufer with this latest opportunity.

“He is awesome. He came here and helped me open this place with his own task force. He stood in that garage in July unpacking glassware, silverware, plate ware. That’s the guy who put me here. He never complained. He’ll call me up now and the only thing he says is ‘Don’t mess it up.’ ” The guy’s salt of the earth” said Newman.

With Laufter’s help and owner Adrian Overstreet’s blessings Newman has taken the reigns of the Sonesta Bee Cave kitchen.

He brings his many years and levels of experience in his roles to run a kitchen family of 11 including his Executive Sous Chef Jason Ward and a line level team of nine. They handle everything food and beverage at Sonesta Bee Cave including their new restaurant Meridian 98.

Meridian 98 specializes in an extensive wine list, craft beer, craft cocktails with bee themes and “locally sourced farm to fork Texas Fare.”

“About 95 percent of our ingredients are locally sourced from around Texas. Our honey, micro greens and meat, most of all of it comes from here. I know the farmers who touched it and I know where it came from” said Newman.

The tapas-style menu at Meridian 98 was created to “BeeShared.” It was decided that way to not compete with the restaurants in the neighboring Hill Country Galleria.

“Me and Peter went and researched how to do this menu because we didn’t want to take business away from the restaurants here in the Galleria so we had to come up with a new style. He and I went to six different bars in Houston one night. The first place we, we tried pig ears, so I came back here to make them better,” said Newman.

Diners not only get to experience the seasonally changing menu at Meridian 98, they also get to enjoy an upscale rooftop lounge designed to look like a British pub with chocolate leather, dark wood floors and views of Texas Hill Country.

In addition to Meridian 98, Newman and his team handle the food and beverage for Sonesta Bee Cave’s 10,000 sq. ft. of meeting and event space.

Regardless of his surroundings, Newman constantly reflects on his days of growing up in Mount Lebanon, working at the local dairy, hunting, fishing and playing on Tater Hill. His Bienville Parish roots are always hanging out.