Restaurants / Openings

Paula Deen Buddy With Serious Chef Power to Open New North Texas Hotel — Meet Jenna Kinard, Westin Southlake’s New Food Wiz

A Rising Star Gets Her Own Chef-Driven Restaurant

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Jenna Kinard served as the executive chef at Fort Worth’s Hotel Drover during its building phase. She exited the hotel project prior to its opening last year. But she’s back and she’ll be opening another hotel soon.

When the new Westin Southlake Hotel opens this fall at 1200 E. State Hwy 114 in Southlake, Kinard will be the executive chef of the hotel’s Seasons 114 Kitchen. That is the restaurant located on the hotel’s first floor.

The Westin Southlake will bring 261 rooms and suites, 34,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor events and meetings space, a resort style pool, a club-level fitness facility, three bars and a chef-driven restaurant helmed by Kinard. Its opening date has not been revealed yet.

Seasons 114 Kitchen, will be “a modern American restaurant focused on shared plates and seasonality,” according to hotel reps. This chef-driven restaurant will offer breakfast, lunch and dinner along with weekend brunch. The dining room will include seating for 90 and be accompanied by a 1,500 square-foot patio with seating for 36.

Chef Jenna Kinard’s take on Tuna Crudo. (Photo courtesy of Westin Southlake.)

“Seasons 114 Kitchen is about creating and celebrating a sense of community while preparing incredible food from the heart using honest ingredients,” Kinard says. “Seasons 114 Kitchen hopes to be a destination for those who seek out this sort of culinary experience using the best product we can get our hands on. While also providing the utmost in hospitality.”

The former chef of Fort Worth’s shuttered Max’s Wine Dive, Jenna Kinard is no stranger to Southern influences. The former beauty queen is good friends with Paula Deen. Those influences will be front and center in her scratch-made kitchen. But don’t expect fried chicken and mounds of mashed potatoes here.

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Instead Kinard has an upgrade in store. Expect exceptionally pretty plates of clean slices of tuna crudo, lamb chops with roasted heirloom carrots, an upscale take on pork and beans with pork tenderloin and baked beans with a slice of potato and root vegetable terrine, and a fall inspired butternut squash and ricotta cappelletti dish.

The Curve Bar is a swank space. (Rendering courtesy of Westin Southlake)

Of course, the new Westin Southlake will bring much more to the table besides Chef Jenna.

Its Curve Lounge is a 1,000 square-foot bar with seating for 25. It will highlight “seasonally appropriate and classic cocktails along with a carefully selected wine list and local beer served in a modern, inviting, and relaxed atmosphere.”

“My partners and I have been working on this luxury hotel offering for many years,” says SRH Hospitality’s Paul Barham, a Southlake resident and partner in the new hotel project. “Working with Chef Jenna Kinard, she brought our vision for the restaurant and lounge to life, in what we know will be a special property in the area.”

When the Westin Southlake opens it will add stylish restaurant and classy bars to the greater Fort Worth scene.

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