His Name is Jonas (and he’s making your meal)
Jonas Favela finds his stride in the kitchen of MMR Prime Steakhouse
Hiding inside what was a Chinese buffet for many years in a building that shares a parking lot with Petsmart and Big Lots is one of the city’s most elegant dining experiences.
They called it the Meat Market Refectory and Market when it first opened in 2016, promising an ambitious approach to fine dining and upscale groceries.
But Jonas Favela is the new chef in town.
Gone is the market and the confusion over what this oddly named, seemingly misplaced restaurant is all about.
Now answering to the name MMR Prime Steakhouse, 2920 NW 63 St., Favela came into the kitchen last year, bringing a directionguided by two decades supporting some of the city’s best restaurants.
Lance Ruffel, who partners with his wife Cindy to own the restaurant, said he has long appreciated the arts and the artists behind it and considers hiring Favela as no different from commissioning
an artist.
“I just want to give him the opportunity to do what he does,” Ruffel said. “My wife and I love fine art and
fine food, and now we have this beautiful place where we can share both.”
Lessons earned
Once Favela decided to concentrate on a career in culinary arts, he joined The Coach House Apprenticeship program. However, when a fulltime job came available at The Metro across the
street, Favela apprehensively took the job.
“I guess that’s one of my career regrets,” Favela said. “I do wonder sometimes how things might’ve worked out if I had stayed, but I wouldn’t change anything if it meant I wouldn’t be here in this beautiful place with the chance to share my food.”
The Las Vegas-native who attended Moore High School rode the Metro to another opportunity at the original Deep Fork Wood Grill before he began a tour of local kitchens few can match with stops at chef Chip Sears’s Chefs Kitchen, Cheever’s Cafe, the Oklahoma City Golf & Country Club, Boulevard Steakhouse and Flint.
But the job that best prepared him for the challenge of MMR were seven years building The Ranch Steakhouse into one of the city’s arch steakhouses.
Drawing heavily on those days, Favela is using the kitchen at MMR to express his experience as an Oklahoma City chef.
“When I was a younger chef, I got into molecular gastronomy for like a second,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with modern techniques, but at the end of the day, as a chef, I have to pay attention what guests like to eat.”
Casually upscale
The restaurant opened as The Meat Market Refectory Prime Steakhouse and Market in 2016.
The name hasn’t changed, but like many who grow to loathe their name as they mature, the restaurant now goes by its initials, MMR.
“Nobody knew what a refectory was,” said general manager Samuel Sampson. “We still have prime steak in the title, and at the end of the day that’s what we’re about.”
Other changes have unfolded. The Ruffels are now sole owners, and the market occupying the northwest corner of the restaurant has been replaced by an art gallery. The restaurant boasts dramatic works throughout its many corridors, nooks and crannies, many of which are the work of local artists.
“We rotate the artwork every few months,” Favela said.
MMR also offers a dazzling space for events ranging from an intimate dinner for two to a wedding reception, but Sampson said despite the ostentatious qualities of the dining room, there is no jacket required.
“We had a guy come in here wearing overalls (recently),” Sampson said. “He was in town at the stockyards all day, but wanted a great meal so he stopped in for dinner. We just want people to be comfortable.”
Favela is pushing himself and his crew to ensure they’re the primary source of that comfort.
“Since I took over here, Lance has let me do whatever I wanted to,” Favela said.
Favela said he’s had a lot of fun building the menu because he’s at a point in his career where he’s dabbled in all the techniques chefs fall in and out of love with and is simply creating with confidence.
Those who’ve followed Favela’s career path will recognize the twicecooked potatoes commonly served with steaks.
“Those are something I came up with while I was at The Ranch,” he laughed. “The guys in the kitchen used to call them Twinkles.”
They do exude a certain star-quality balancing a beautiful plate of steak, whether it’s the Snake River Wagyu 10-ounce rib-eye or the 5-ounce filet.
At the table
All the beef served at MMR is prime-grade, but Favela said one of the ways he wanted to differentiate himself from the chop houses where he’s served and those that remain is in portion sizes.
“Most steakhouses have a really masculine feel and the huge, expensive cuts that come with them,” he said. “I’m not afraid to get in touch with the feminine side of the steakhouse experience. We can control our price points better with slightly smaller cuts and still offer an exceptional experience.”
Quality over quantity is the order of the day when it comes to steaks, with prime cuts offered in 5-, 7-, 8-, 10- and 12-ounce options. Add that to fresh seafood like Cedar Plank Sea Bass, Jumbo Scallops and Lobster Thermidor and visions of a familystyle smorgasbord of surf and turf will dance through your head.
Steaks can be topped with foie gras, garlicwhiskey au poivre or crab and brown butter.
Favela also offers a smoked half chicken served with warm potato salad, truffles, and white balsamic caramel with Brussels sprouts. His one pasta dish is a beef-andpork Bolognese served over pappardelle with oven-dried tomatoes and shaved Parmesan. He also serves a grilled Iberico pork tenderloin served with potato puree, roasted carrots and cauliflower plus balsamic-fig chutney.
Charcuterie is made in house, inspired by Favela’s good buddy and fellow chef Mitchel Dunzy, now of Esca Vitae.
“I gotta give Mitchell credit,” Favela said. “My secret passion is in pastry, so it would’ve never occurred to me, but when Mitchell was here he said, ‘We should do our charcuterie,’ so I challenged him to get it started, and he did.”
Favela said he encourages his crew to push and elevate standards and practices.
“I had good mentors when I was a young chef,” he said. “I like to encourage the guys to push their ideas, it’s the only way we get better as a restaurant.” Charcuterie is a lovely way to start a meal at MMR, but you’ll need a cheese board to go with it. Other options include crabcakes, beef tournedos with cured egg yolk and brioche with demi glace, ahi tuna spiced with togarashi and truffle fries.
Salads come in six varieties, including Caesar, wedge, spinach and garden. The Beet and Goat Cheese interpretation is a mix of braised beets, goat cheese, and local greens with maple vinaigrette, pistachio butter, and chopped pistachios. The Shaved Brussels and Radicchio salad comes with red onions, sweet pepper, Ricotta Salata, Honey-Truffle Vinaigrette, and topped with toasted walnuts pieces.
Look for new soups options as Favela rolls out the spring menu and some changes to the 12 sides offered.
MMR Prime Steakhouse also is open for lunch, featuring some of the dinner menu along with six signature sandwiches, including house-made pastrami, fried-chicken, ham and cheddar, club wrap and Caesar chicken wrap.
At the bar
Bar manager Dan Hays presents a bar program aimed at the classics but with the kind of whimsy you might expect from a fellow sporting a curly-Q mustache.
“We’re a steakhouse, and our guests expect the classics so we concentrate on that,” Hays said.
“I’ve got a great wine list, too, and some local beers. We do some great signature cocktails, but at the end of the day we’re about the classics. I sell more Old-Fashioneds than anything else, so we make sure we do them right.”
But that doesn’t slow the beverage program from being progressive. Along with exclusive wine dinners, Myers and Favela are teaming to present a Balvenie Scotch dinner on April 19.
MMR has three private rooms for special events and private dining plus two options for using the east or west dining room. MMR hosts openings for each artist who is featured in the gallery when artwork rotates.
For more information or to make reservations, go online to mmrprimesteakhouse. com or call 608-8866.