Fork + Fire to Bring Acclaimed Chefs from Across Texas to Fort Worth Food + Wine Festival

In a city that routinely hosts exceptional food events, the annual Fort Worth Food + Wine Festival is one of Fort Worth’s defining culinary traditions. This year’s four-day event features tastings, chef-driven dinners, and large-scale events that draw talent from across Texas. Ahead of Saturday’s Fork + Fire, which brings together acclaimed chefs from around the state, we caught up with the teams behind Meridian, Comadre Panadería, and Trill Burgers to see what’s new and what they’re bringing to Fort Worth for the event.

Chef Eduardo Osorio, Meridian (Dallas)

After Meridian’s year-long closure that ended last October, Chef Eduardo Osorio led the reopening of the acclaimed restaurant in The Village. The Los Angeles transplant brought a renewed focus on live-fire cooking and approachable yet elevated fare — a shift he says has been warmly received. Working with fire, he adds, is simply a return to how cooking began.

“Before there was gas and stoves, everyone cooked with fire,” he tells PaperCity Fort Worth. “I spent all my summers and spring breaks in Guatemala with my grandparents. Every time we cooked by the beach or lakes, we did it over a fire. Right now, we use Texas oak. Honestly, you can’t replicate the flavors of what we create without fire.”

Osorio highlights the foie gras with sea island cornbread and brown butter as a dish that reflects Meridian’s mix of refinement and comfort. The dish, Osorio says, is both “luxurious and comforting,” blending French sensibilities with Southern comfort. For Fork + Fire, Osorio and his team will bring smoked clams topped with compressed melons, cilantro, mint, lime, and a bit of Thai chile.

There’s a lot of “momentum” in the Dallas dining scene right now, Osorio says, as chefs push for national attention and diversify the city’s dining scene.

Mariela Camacho, Comadre Panadería (Austin)

Mariela Camacho never set out to be a nationally recognized double James Beard Award finalist. Instead, the Comadre Panadería founder built her approach around locally sourced, minimally processed ingredients, shaping a style rooted in both heritage and intention. Though raised in the States, Camacho is deeply influenced by her parents’ Mexican heritage and the role baked goods play in Hispanic communities on both sides of the border.

“Bread is a part of our daily ritual and lives,” she says. “I lived in Seattle for five years, and I didn’t really have access to pan dulce. That is part of the reason why I started Comadre. I wanted access to food that connected me to my culture.”

Camacho’s baking is grounded in a careful approach to ingredients, with an emphasis on sourcing grains, dairy, and produce from local and responsible producers. She avoids heavily processed elements and instead relies on techniques like long fermentation and natural sweeteners to build flavor and texture.

“I grew up seeing my family be very sick from not having access to nutritious, healthy food,” she says. “So all of those things have pushed me in a direction where we want to give our hard-earned money to people who respect the laborers they work with, as well as the land and the animals. Luckily, we have Barton Springs Mill here in Texas, right outside of Austin, growing organic wheat. You don’t have that [sugar] crash as hard, honestly.”

For the festival, Camacho will bring a guava tres leches, a two-layer cake soaked in house-made sweetened condensed milk and coconut milk, with a touch of agricole rum from Oaxaca. The dessert will be layered with guava and finished with a light vanilla cream.

Chef Mike Pham and Rapper Bun B, Trill Burgers (Houston)

What started as a pop-up has quickly grown into one of Texas’ most talked-about burger concepts. Backed by Houston rapper Bun B and led in the kitchen by Executive Chef Mike Pham, Trill Burgers recently opened its third location in the Houston area after being named “America’s Best Burger” on Good Morning America in 2022.

“You have to be careful what you ask for, because we really wanted to win that competition,” Bun B says. “We are going to have a fourth location in about a month. We have to live up to this burger’s reputation. It is a fun, interesting challenge for us.”

Trill Burgers’ smashburger, made with all-beef patties, caramelized onion, pickles, and their patented Trill Sauce, developed from a shared “obsession” with burgers, Pham says. The goal was to recreate the feeling of the first time someone ever had a great burger, focusing on nostalgia rather than novelty. Instead of leaning into regional flavors or overcomplicating the build, the team centered on balance, texture, and familiarity to deliver something that feels instantly recognizable and satisfying.

“We hold a high standard for ourselves because we’re passionate about the product,” Pham continues. “We want to produce something we ourselves enjoy, and we’re the biggest critics of our product.”

Hip-Hop artist Bun B says managing a burger chain is similar to promoting an album.

“There’s a lot of meets and greets,” he says. “That’s a big part of what I do at Trill Burgers. I was able to translate the cultural equity that I built up in the music industry through trust more than anything. My fans trusted me then, and they can trust me now. We want people who have been dying for a taste of this burger to get one at the Fort Worth food and wine festival.”

The 2026 Fort Worth Food + Wine Festival runs from April 9 through 12 at the Heart of the Ranch at Clearfork.