Olaf Growald
Bridging the gap between the fine dining of yesterday and today is Tim Love, whose groundbreaking Lonesome Dove restaurant — the first of many restaurants he would open in Fort Worth and beyond — put a high-end spin on wild game, barbecue, Mexican food, and other beloved Fort Worth cuisines, blazing a path for so many of our new and up-and-coming chefs. It’s hard to imagine what Fort Worth’s culinary scene would be like without Tim Love.
This month, Lonesome Dove celebrates its 25th anniversary — a milestone not at all lost on Love, who, unlike some restaurateurs who quickly bounce from project to project, is still very much tied to his debut restaurant. It did, after all, bring something new to the fine-dining table.
“It was a leap of faith, no doubt,” Love says. “We took the things Fort Worth already loved — red meat, wild game, that deep Western spirit — and pushed it into a new space. Elevated it. We brought in local ingredients, worked with farmers, introduced fine-dining techniques to dishes people might have only seen on ranch tables. The goal was to create something special, something that felt like Fort Worth, but flipped on its head.”
In a way, it took a disaster for Lonesome Dove to take flight. In 2000, Love was working at Reata, then located at the top of the Bank One building downtown, when a tornado tore through the area, pummeling Reata.
“The idea [for Lonesome Dove] was always there, kind of in the back of my mind, always developing,” he says. “But when the tornado hit Reata, that’s when it became real. Suddenly, I didn’t have a job, didn’t have anything lined up — and that’s when I said, all right, time to go.”
Lonesome Dove was, of course, the first of many Love restaurants, opened here and elsewhere. Today, he owns 14 restaurants or food-related concepts, each brandishing a streak of inventiveness or forward-thinking: Woodshed offered craft-style barbecue long before it became popular in Fort Worth; Paloma Suerte takes birria to another level, with flavors such as short rib and duck; and in a town full of great burgers, his Dirty Love burger at Love Shack — streaked in a wildly addictive “love” sauce and topped with a quail egg — remains one of the city’s best.
Love says that it’s his adopted hometown that drives this creative energy.
“I just love this city,” he says. “I was born and raised in Denton, but we came to Fort Worth all the time growing up — museums, the zoo, even the spot where Woodshed sits now used to be a Putt-Putt I went to with my dad. It’s always been close to my heart. There’s opportunity here, and I just want to keep creating amazing spots and, hopefully, encouraging other great cooks and restaurateurs to come stick their toe in these great waters of Fort Worth.”
Reflecting on his 25-year career as a restaurateur, Love finds the enduring legacy of Lonesome Dove to be his greatest source of pride and the pinnacle of his career.
“To be able to create something that honored Fort Worth’s culture but also pushed it forward,” he says. “That’s the thing I’m most proud of.”
Lonesome Dove
2406 N. Main St.
