Meet Tyler Rooney | Head Baker

We had the good fortune of connecting with Tyler Rooney and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Tyler, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
We started Oak Cliff Bread is the summer of 2020. The dream had been knocking around our heads for years prior, but we stuck it out, working in restaurants up to the point when we didn’t have restaurants to go to anymore, they had shut down. Considering career changes (maybe government jobs, maybe go back to school), we returned to what we had always been passionate about, baking bread. We didn’t have equipment to start a bakery, we didn’t have a team and still don’t, but we were able to work with what we had to produce as much as we possibly could.

In those early days, all the sourdough was baked in Dutch ovens and the pastry was laminated with a rolling pin and blistered hands. We worked with our friends at Salaryman in Bishop Arts to mill wheat at their restaurant and drove to our Chef’s produce supply dock to pick up cases of high-quality, high-fat butter. It’s the same process we use today, only we’ve purchased our own mill, and Barton Springs Mill delivers our grain to our doorstep.

Simply, I’d say the most important factor behind our success is that we had set these high standards for ourselves; to highlight local grain, to use long fermentation that makes bread more complex, to use the best ingredients we could buy, and to continue learning and pushing ourselves. I think people appreciate the effort we put into our product, and hopefully it’s a recipe that continues to be successful.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My wife and I both came up the arduous path of a kitchen hierarchy. We met as line cooks at Parkside in Austin. There’s a pretty clear path from cold station, where you start, to Chef but it isn’t easy. I had no skills walking into the kitchen.

Untrained, I spent a year on fry station. I put in my time, but more importantly I worked on developing skills that made me more valuable in the kitchen. When you arrive fresh out of culinary school or in my case, a sandwich shop, you don’t realize you have no skills worth anything in a professional kitchen and you’re forced to start at the bottom. You learn how to work clean, how to plate efficiently, set up a station, work 12-hr days. Chef Shawn was proud to say he created monsters at his restaurants and its true, most who made it to Grill station or a Chef position went on to open their own place or lead the next kitchen they worked in.

It took me about 5 years to be promoted to Sous Chef at his sister restaurant, Olive & June, and that was around the time I really started to become fascinated with fermentation, sourdough in particular. Chef Shawn sent me to San Francisco for a week-long course at the San Fransisco Baking Institute and we revamped the service bread at the restaurant, as well as ran a weekly sourdough special, but it wasn’t quite enough.

After two years as working as Sous Chef, Chayanne and I had our second baby and knew we probably needed to move closer to the family. We packed for Dallas, and I scoured the bread scene, finding no bakeries that focused on sourdough, other than at the cottage level. I was fortunate enough to land a job with David Uygur of Lucia, baking once a week and doing AM prep the rest of the week. I was ecstatic! I was finally baking sourdough regularly and professionally for one of the best restaurants in the city. That was for about a year, until the pandemic closed our doors and forced us into a situation that changed everything.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Let’s do it! A weekend with OCB.

Day 1-
Start the day with a cappuccino from Wayward Coffee on Davis

Pack lunch and head down south to the Cedar Ridge Nature preserve for a hike

Day 2-
Museum day! Head downtown to visit the Perot Science Museum

After which let the kids have a play session at Klyde Warren Park
nap

Walk to Bishop arts and grab a coffee at Wild Detectives, where you can browse books and drink coffee/cocktails

Shop around, walk, enjoy the music

Dinner at Lucia

Day 3-
Head down to the Dallas Farmer’s Market around 10am and pick up some fresh produce, bread, gifts, you name it!

Lunch at Sandwich Hag for some bomb Bahn Mi’s and Vietnamese iced coffee
Head out!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I dedicate this Shoutout to my Mom and Dad who’ve seen me through a few different, less productive versions of myself and always stuck it out (remember when I wanted to live in the woods with your dog, ma?). They’re the reason we landed in Oak Cliff, after a decade of renting in Austin, and the reason I have any shadowy images of European bakeries in my memory. They knew Oak Cliff before it was cool, and they’re the best parents and grandparents anyone could ask for.

Website: oakcliffbread.com

Instagram: oakcliffbread

Facebook: Oak Cliff Bread

Yelp: Oak Cliff Bread

Image Credits
Kathy Tran