
Stephen Montoya
Chef Joshua Motte, founder of Motte's Kitchen, looks at his plate of freshly made Shakshuka.
It’s not often in our business that a ready-made story walks through the front doors of our office, but that’s exactly what happened when local chef and founder of Motte’s Kitchen, Joshua Motte swung by our offices over a month ago. Like many a delivery driver does on a daily basis, Motte rang the front desk bell announcing his arrival. In under 20 minutes he had all of us eating from his highly skilled hands. Motte’s unexpected arrival was accompanied by three boxes of food. One box was filled with breakfast burritos, another with slices of rum cake, and the third with a light and fluffy quiche. All three were delicious thus enacting an onslaught of questions from our curious staff members as we stuffed our faces.
The always gracious Motte humbly explained who he was and why he was sharing his food with us, which he summed up as simply loving to cook. Several weeks would go by before I would have a chance to catch up with Motte again at a small commercial kitchen in Mansfield. I followed my nose straight to the stove top, already steaming with freshly cooked ground lamb meat. After saying our hellos, Motte began to tell me about his culinary vision and why he became a chef in the first place.
Originally from the Houston area, Motte says he grew up watching his parents and grandparents cook various styles of food including Cajun cuisine.
“My family is from Louisiana and from Houston, so I feel like that Houston culture and that Louisiana culture just comes out in most of my dishes,” Motte says while adding spices to the ground lamb. “But this right here, I kind of put my own little spin on it.”
Today, Motte is creating his take on North African Shakshuka, made with fresh tomatoes, tomato paste, onions, peppers, spinach, four over easy eggs, and ground lamb meat topped with feta cheese. As we experience the changes in smells and consistency of this Ragu-style sauce, Motte opined about his start in the kitchen as a teenager.
“I spent a lot of time in the kitchen with my grandma, grandpa, mom, and pops,” he says. “My pops is a big barbecue pit master. My mom would be in the kitchen a lot. She does a lot of baking and stuff like that. So that’s where the bulk of my experience comes from.”
Motte says he always loved cooking but put that passion on the back burner to play college football, an endeavor that led him to Texas Wesleyan University in 2022 as an outside linebacker and defensive end during his sophomore year. After graduating from college, Motte says his journey back to the kitchen happened on a lark.
“Somehow word got out about my Jambalaya pasta that I would make for me and my college roommate,” he says. “People would always ask me to make them a plate of food, but resources were scarce.”

Stephen Montoya
One day while working as a valet in downtown Fort Worth, Motte says one of his co-workers told him that they were craving pasta from Razzoo’s Cajun Cafe. Before he even realized it, he offered to make his co-worker some of his own Cajun jambalaya pasta, all he needed was $20 for the supplies.
“The next day my coworker is asking for four more plates,” he says. “I noticed then that I was onto something with my cooking.”
For a little over a year now, Motte has actively placed himself in the driver’s seat of this idea with the creation of Motte’s Kitchen, a personalized meal prep and food delivery business in Fort Worth. Since he was a collegiate athlete, Motte says his menus usually consist of healthy food options for his list of clients that include personal trainers, models, and gym owners. Motte’s Kitchen also does meal prep for seniors, along with catering parties, and weddings.
“That's where a lot of my business comes from, but I do want to focus more on catering,” he says.
No, Motte isn’t looking to open up a food truck or move into a brick-and-mortar locale, instead he wants to expand his catering services like a pop-up restaurant in various locations around DFW. All of Motte’s food services includes prep, meal service, and cleanup no matter what’s on the menu. Oh yeah, he also takes food requests.
Growing up on the gulf coast, Motte says he learned how to filet large fish and can break down a and butcher most animals.

Stephen Montoya
“I know how to do all of that, I make my own sausage too,” he says with a smile.
As we close our interview, Motte blends all of the ingredients for his Shakshuka in a large cast iron skillet placing four eggs inside the sauce to cook. As soon as the Shakshuka was done, we smeared some of it on a few small pieces of bread and toasted to each other with our first bites. The combination of lamb with fresh cilantro and over easy egg united to create a unique flavor that made me go back for several more bites.
“I can cook pretty much anything requested, but I would say I really feel the most comfortable with Cajun, barbecue, and Italian cuisine,” he says. “But that’s not to say I won’t pick up more skills along the way. You never know what I might try next.”