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Keeper of the flame: nothing says summer like a cookout, and nobody understands a cookout better than Paul Petersen. The executive chef of the Gage Hotel, in Marathon, as created a feast in which everything is grilled--even dessert.

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When you visit chef Paul Petersen at the historic Gage Hotel, in the West Texas town of Marathon, it isn't long before he escorts you out back to see his favorite toy: a mammoth, soot-blackened smoker and grill. The interior of the contraption is so shiny with grease it looks like patent leather. Petersen, who is a boyish 37, has been grilling every chance he gets since the day he took charge of the 81-year-old hotel's restaurant, Cafe Cenizo, in 2006. In the intervening two years, he's accomplished what many thought would never happen: He has restored the dining room's faded glory. In October 2007 he received the most prominent in a string of critical accolades, a shout-out in the Esquire 100, the magazine's annual feature on emerging talent nationwide--or, as its cover memorably touted, the top "ideas, trends, discoveries, products, people, and obscene gestures you should know about before everyone else does."

Petersen has embraced his role as city-boy-turned-cowboy-chef--witness a custom-made scarlet-and-black chef's jacket with Western detailing and a menu that lists not only bison ribeye but medallions of elk. He didn't map out his career in advance, of course, but his path to Cafe Cenizo sounds almost preordained. To his Texas roots--he was born and raised in San Antonio--he added a diploma from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, in 1999. After that, he took three years to get clogs-on-the-ground experience at three highly regarded Manhattan restaurants (An American Place,...

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