Dallas’s Loss Is Austin’s Gain as Celebrated Chef Junior Borges Takes the Helm at Juniper

James Beard-recognized chef Junior Borges has join forces as a partner with Austin’s Excelsior Hospitality Group (Uncle Nicky’s, Murray’s Tavern). Part of Borges’s new job will be working with the group’s current restaurants, while another part will include expanding to cities outside of Texas. The group already announced it will open an “upscale Brazilian restaurant” called Nic & Junior’s in Chicago this spring — named for and Borges and owner and chef Nicholas Yanes.

Borges will also take over as the executive chef at Juniper in Austin, which is the group’s flagship restaurant in the city. Borges tells Eater Austin that Yanes was one of the first people he met when he visited Texas for the first time over a decade ago, when both were working at Uchi Dallas. The duo stayed in touch, and when Borges departed from Dallas’ highly-acclaimed Meridian, a restaurant built around his Afro Brazilian cooking, the duo decided to join forces.

Borges plans to take Juniper back to its roots and focus on Northern Italian food, and tells Eater Austin that diners will see some Brazilian items on the menu as well. “I think Italian cuisine and European styles have always part of the philosophy of how I cook, focused on simplicity and high-[quality] ingredients,” he says.

Borges adds that he is in awe of Juniper’s 10-year history in Austin, but that the role of any good restaurant is to “always continue to evolve.” Along with his team, Borges added to the menu a scallop crudo with Texas peaches and a citrus vinaigrette, new steak options, a rock shrimp pasta with marinated tomatoes, and a tuna tartare mixed with tomatoes. “You can’t see the difference [between tuna and tomato] because it’s all red,” he says. “It’s really fun.” There’s also a potato-filled pasta that Borges says “looks really pretty” and is served with butter, chicken jus, and truffles.

“When you look at some dishes, there are only three or four ingredients, but there is a lot of technique and layers of flavor,” Borges says. “It shows the vision of what we’re going for.”