Junior Borges

For more than 20 years, chef Junior Borges has pioneered an approach to Brazilian food in the United States that elevates the nation’s African history. Originally from Rio de Janeiro, Borges moved to New York in 1999, where he began working in restaurants. He attended the French Culinary Institute and worked at a number of fine dining restaurants before moving to Dallas in 2014, where he was the opening executive chef of that city’s outpost of Uchi. He most recently headed up the kitchen at Meridian, a fine-dining restaurant where the menu centered Borges’ personal approach to Brazilian food. In 2023, Borges founded his own hospitality group, Borges Hospitality.