Dallas McGarity began his culinary journey when he was a young child growing up in rural South Carolina. He became fascinated with food and cooking as he watched his mother and grandmother prepare traditional southern dishes. His endless questions and constant requests to cook soon led to creating his own dishes.

At the age of 15, his first job was washing dishes at the local country club. Although he was in a professional kitchen, the environment he loved, the job itself definitely lacked what he viewed as the real excitement that he observed only feet away. One busy night when the grill cook didn’t show up for work, Dallas was called into action. He loved the hectic pace and even the constant stress. He knew he had discovered what he wanted to do the rest of his life when the sous chef called him a “natural in the kitchen.”

Making the decision to enroll in the acclaimed Johnson and Wales University, in Charleston, South Carolina was “the easiest, most logical decision in my life”. During his culinary education, he worked as sous chef, chef de cuisine and commis chef in some of the most celebrated restaurants in Charleston, benefiting from the experience and knowledge of the city’s best culinarians.

In 1999, he was named Executive Sous Chef at Dunes West Golf Club, one of the premier wedding venues in Charleston. Three years later, he accepted the Head Chef position at Capriccio’s Italian Ristorante, in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, a four-star 44 seat restaurant. Jacques Bougoyon, the owner, soon became McGarity’s mentor and a culinary hero. The Italian restaurant, with an owner from southern France, was the perfect venue for McGarity to immerse himself in both French and Italian cuisines, and to become enamored with the Mediterranean style of cooking.

He moved to Louisville in 2004, after a short trip cooking in England, and assumed the position of Executive Chef at Volare Ristorante where he has the opportunity to serve a loyal clientele classic Italian dishes and to experiment with new interpretations of several regional Italian cuisines while putting Volare on a national culinary stage. “My vision at Volare was to give people a glimpse into a new style of Italian cuisine. I wanted to show people the classics but also give them a chance to see that creativity plays a vital role in the way a chef expresses himself with any style of cuisine. Italian cuisine is not the same as it used to be and I want people to see that it is becoming just as refined as French cuisine.”

Dallas opened and developed the concept for Z’s Fusion Restaurant as the Executive Chef in late 2008. The restaurant is a European Fusion concept that prides itself on the freshest Hawaiian fish and creatively prepared/elegantly served cuisine. In the first year of opening, Z’s Fusion was voted “Best New

Restaurant” by Louisville Magazine and took first place as “Best Sushi” and “Most Creative” at Sushi in the City, a competition with all of the best sushi restaurants in the Louisville area and helped establish Z’s Fusion as the best seafood restaurant in the Leo’s reader’s choice awards.

Chef Dallas has been invited twice to cook at the prestigious James Beard House in New York City. Once with Volare producing an innovative Italian dinner and once with Z’s Fusion for a “Cooking in the Bluegrass” preview dinner placing him among the ranks of a few of Louisville’s finest chefs.

Chef Dallas has recently taken the helm as Executive Chef at Marketplace Restaurant in downtown Louisville. His passion for local ingredients as well as a creative, but approachable style of cooking allows him to create cuisine that is elegant but not pretentious while showing off some of the surrounding area’s best ingredients.

“When I’m not in the kitchen, I enjoy talking to guests in the dining room. When they thank me for a wonderful meal, it’s always with genuine appreciation that I thank them for the opportunity to indulge my passion for food and cooking,” says Dallas.