Chef Tobias Dorzon is ready to lead James Harden’s new Thirteen restaurant
James Harden’s prowess on the basketball court is well known. His skills as a restaurateur, however, are untested.
That will change soon, when the NBA superstar opens Thirteen and attempts to prove he can score on the competitive Houston restaurant scene as easily as he does for the Rockets. Thirteen, Harden’s first step into the hospitality industry, is readying an opening the weekend of Jan. 22 at 1911 Bagby, the former Mr. Peeples spot in Midtown.
Harden has entrusted the kitchen at Thirteen — one of Houston’s most high-profile restaurant openings this year — to a chef who is unknown to the city’s tight-knit dining community. But make no mistake, chef Tobias Dorzon is just as determined as his boss to make Thirteen, an homage to the NBA All-Star’s famous jersey number, a success.
The 36-year-old Maryland native has been building his own brand for years as a former pro athlete turned celebrity chef. After several years playing in the NFL (Tennessee Titans and Tampa Bay Buccaneers) and the Canadian Football League, Dorzon returned to the Washington, D.C., area to begin a catering business in 2014, followed by a food truck and eventually a restaurant.
Dorzon’s shift from football to fine dining was not surprising to his professional athlete friends, who had been admiring his culinary posts on Instagram since 2015. Soon, he was tapped as personal chef to elite athletes. His first sports client was former Washington Redskins wide receiver Santana Moss. That led to cooking for NFL and NBA players, including Tyrod Taylor, DeSean Jackson, Trent Williams, Jameer Nelson, Jeff Green and Jarrett Jack, as well as celebrities, including Chris Brown, Kevin Hart and Snoop Dogg. He’s cooked for LeBron James, too.
Dorzon’s skills obviously impressed Harden, whose announcement in early December that he would be opening a Houston restaurant, came with precious few details.
But now we know this much: The former Mr. Peeples space has been completely redesigned (snazzy dining room and separate bar/lounge) and Dorzon has planned a menu of rich, flavorful dishes that will please diners expecting upscale fare, cocktails and fine wine. Dorzon describes the restaurant as steakhouse meets comfort food. There’s a distinct acknowledgment of Houston’s love of beef and Gulf seafood tempered with inspirations from Cajun country and the soul food playbook.
“It’s a challenge,” Dorzon said of entering the Houston market with a project on the scale of Thirteen. “This is a big platform, a big space, and a huge opportunity. You don’t want to drop the ball.”
The chef said that Harden didn’t dictate a specific menu. “He’s given me free reign to create.”
Dorzon has been busy — he moved to Houston two months ago — doing just that. His menu includes dishes such as Old Bayflavored french fries lavished with a Maryland crab cream sauce; deepfried, four-layer lasagna; lump crab-stuffed prawns on creamy fettuccine; crab and crawfish fried rice with buttered prawns; creamy smoked Gouda grits topped with a Cajun stew of crawfish, sausage and lobster; fried grit cakes with barbecue shrimp and barbecue cream sauce; deep-fried red snapper with a “brown stew” broth; and a platebusting dry-age tomahawk steak with shallot and pineapple compound butter (perhaps best enjoyed with side dishes of lobster macaroni and cheese, smoked turkey collard greens and twicebaked loaded sweet potatoes).
Dorzon readily admits he loves spice and hopes to distinguish his menu with his love of full-flavored dishes — something he learned from his Liberian immigrant parents, especially his father, who for years ran West African restaurant Kendejah in Washington, D.C.
“His work ethic is second to none,” Dorzon said. “Lots of people have superheroes. He’s mine.”
Dorzon’s profile is on the rise. He has been featured on several episode of Food Network’s “Guy’s Grocery Games” and soon will tape another episode. While Dorzon continues as chef at Victory Restaurant & Lounge in Miami, his work at Thirteen will be the project that will bring him the most notoriety.
He’s eager to please Harden, for sure, creating a dish called Sun Devil (creamed collard green stopped roasted oysters topped with candy bacon), a nod to Harden’s time playing for Arizona State University. But it is the Houston dining public he’s most keen to impress.
“I’m not worried. I’m excited,” the chef said.