Miles, Dolester 'Dol'

Impact on the world

Named the James Beard Foundation's Outstanding Pastry Chef in May 2018, after three prior nominations, recognizing decades of work as executive pastry chef at Frank Stitt's Highlands Bar and Grill in Birmingham, Alabama, which that same ceremony named the year's Outstanding Restaurant after ten consecutive years of nomination; chef Edouardo Jordan specifically named Miles among the pioneering Black chefs he said he stood in the shadow of while accepting his own award the same night, alongside Patrick Clark, Rodney Scott, and Nina Compton, all already profiled in this collection.

Life & background

Born in Victoria, Texas in 1957 and raised in Bessemer, Alabama, Miles learned to make traditional Southern desserts, including pecan pie, lemon meringue pie, and peach cobbler, directly from her mother Cora Mae; she graduated from Wenonah High School in 1975 and attended Alabama A&M University and Lawson State Community College, where she studied computer science rather than culinary arts, taking a job as a cook in nearby Homewood, Alabama specifically to help cover her tuition. When chef Frank Stitt opened Highlands Bar and Grill in Birmingham in 1982, he hired Miles and her older sister Diane as cooks, and Miles gradually worked her way up through the kitchen to become the restaurant's executive pastry chef, building a reputation over more than four decades for desserts that blended classical French pastry technique with the Southern dessert traditions she had first learned from her mother. Her sustained excellence earned her three James Beard nominations before her eventual 2018 win, the same year Highlands Bar and Grill itself was named the Foundation's Outstanding Restaurant, beating out nominees including Balthazar and Canlis in a category requiring ten consecutive years of operation; she has continued working at Highlands for over four decades, representing one of the longest single-restaurant tenures of any chef recognized by the James Beard Foundation.

Sources

1. Tasting Table (James Beard Award Winners 2018); FSR Magazine