Renowned Chef Austin Simmons Reveals His Next Step After The Woodlands’ Tris — Get Ready For Chef and Rancher

When renowned chef Austin Simmons suddenly left Tris, the restaurant he made into a sensation in The Woodlands, many wondered what would be next. Now we know.

Chef and Rancher is the newest project from Simmons, centered around bringing superior beef to market, with a hoof to fork mentality.

“What I was trying to do is bring a program to market with genetic verified beef,” Simmons tells PaperCity The Woodlands. “Chef and Rancher is a way for me to finally tell the story of the program. It’s a way for me to direct ship the product to the consumer, which has become a passion for me.

“And soon I’ll be teaching whole animal cooking.”

The commercial beef industry is not focused on providing restaurants and consumers with consistent quality beef, or ensuring that cattle are raised correctly, according to Simmons.

“What was important to me is to understand how the animal is raised, and that it’s not medicated and there’s no manufactured products in the feed,” Simmons says. “There’s all kinds of stuff fed to cows in the cattle industry.

“It’s kind of a slippery slope, but you wouldn’t eat half of what you buy if you knew how that animal was raised and fed.”

Simmons has two partners in Chef and Rancher, Larry Ludeke of Bar J Ranch and Joe Morris of Morris Stock Farms, who both bring deep roots in cattle and feed. All of the cattle will be at a ranch in the Huntsville area, which is supposed to be a good cattle country with good grass, a good amount of rain and not a lot of flooding.

“Larry came to me and says, ‘I feel like I have the best Black Wagyu. I respect what you’ve done in the industry. Will you try it?’ ” Simmons recalls.

Simmons set out to create his line of beef dubbed Chef Austin Wagyu by breeding that Black Wagyu with a French Charolais cattle.

“So the quest for me was how do we produce a cow that will create these all the different butcher cuts and how do we get it to have intramuscular marbling, and how do we get it to perform as a cut steak, instead of it being something that has to be manipulated,” Simmons says. “That’s what a genetic verified program will do. If you have the right genetics.”

Simmons Cooking

Austin Simmons has always been known for his off-site cooking and that will continue with Chef and Rancher. This time with some familiar faces.

“Chef and Rancher is launching private events this week,” Simmons says. “I have five booked for Valentine’s Day already. I come to your house, I brought back some of the employees that were let go at Tris. And we’re putting them back to work in these events.”

Meanwhile, Simmons ventured 4,000 miles from Texas to feed firefighters in California battling the Los Angeles fires.

“They asked me to come out and cook for the firefighters in the National Guard,” Simmons says. “They just needed their spirits lifted. So I drove 45 hours in four days, cooked 3,000 burgers and came back. I don’t know that I’ve ever cooked for people who are more grateful.

“I threw it all together in 24 hours, loaded my trailer and grills and shipped the meat and went out there. It was incredible.”

His next mass cooking event is a little nearer to home. Simmons expects to be cooking for those working on the Southern border soon.

If you’re looking to get Chef and Rancher meats on a menu, the beef will be available at The Woodlands restaurant Amrina starting next Tuesday, February 18. This exclusive restaurant partner will have a section dedicated to Chef and Rancher’s Wagyu ribeye strips and filet steaks, enhanced by Chef Jassi Bindra’s Masala rub and spice butter.

Going To Chef School

Online cooking classes are in the pipeline from Chef Austin. Simmons is a Cordon Bleu program graduate who went on to work at Dallas’ famed Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek. He has worked in the restaurant industry since he was 19, often working more than 100 hours a week. Few know more about the business. Teaching classes is new thing for Simmons.

“I’m going to teach every cut on multiple fuel sources,” Simmons says. “So I’ll take what you typically have at home, and I will teach you how to cook specific cuts on specific fuel source. You may have a charcoal grill, you may have a gas grill and you may have a cast iron pan. Right now, I’m building the company from scratch.”

Direct orders for products are available through the ChefRancher site. While beef is Simmons’ main focus, sauces, seasonings and apparel will soon also be available on a website that’s in the works. Simmons has shipped to more than 35 states in the last three weeks, and for locals he may just delivery your order in person. For now, you can follow Chef and Rancher’s Instagram.

And don’t worry, another Austin Simmons restaurant is on the horizon.

“We’ll be back in the restaurant business eventually, but it’ll all blend towards showcasing my whole program,” Simmons reveals.