"During her time away from barbecue, Loomis worked at the Italian restaurant in the San Antonio Museum of Art, first helping with prep at its commissary kitchen and later becoming executive sous chef. There she learned Tuscan-style dishes and hand-rolled pasta and deliberately stepped into a different culinary world: “I think I just wanted to do something different for a while. I wanted to see what else was out there and turn my hand at another cuisine,” she says. She credits that experience with sharpening her sense of presentation and awareness of what guests see — lessons she plans to bring back to barbecue: “Barbecue is so different from Italian. It’s very simple: salt, pepper, and smoke. But I think the biggest thing I learned in my absence is presentation and being aware of what the guests see,” she says." - Brittany Britto Garley