From Head to Heart
Chef Robert Black says food is his love language.
“It really is how I communicate affection,” he explains. “It’s what fills me up; not just eating it but preparing it.”
Robert and his wife, Lori Dickinson-Black, preside over a small culinary empire, stretched over a few blocks in downtown Edmond: Cafe Evoke, Twisted Tree Baking Company, The Lofts at Evoke, and SpringBoard restaurant consulting. After hours, you’ll likely find Robert in his own kitchen at home.
“All I want to do is cook for my family,” he says. Even though their children are grown, everyone swarms home when Robert is cooking.
“We sent out a text on Thursday, and literally 20 people showed up Friday night at our house for a crawfish boil,” Lori says, adding that Robert seems most content when food is in play. “Whether he’s expediting at a restaurant or just cooking goulash at home, he’s happy. He’s in a zone.”
Robert grew up in Shattuck, Oklahoma, where his “Gramma Dee” had a policy (unconventional in that time and place) that men were welcome in the kitchen. Both Robert and his uncle, Russ Islas, took her up on the offer, learning about German and Oklahoman cuisine. Islas moved beyond the family kitchen to The Metro Wine Bar and Bistro, where he introduced a young Robert to fine French food.
But Robert’s culinary passion wasn’t yet fully aflame. Rather, with a propensity for math, he was geared toward engineering. At 18, he reported to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, with engineering scholarships in hand. That’s where he stumbled upon Little Joe’s Italian restaurant.
“I needed beer money,” Robert says with a smile, “so I took a job as a dishwasher. I quickly learned that washing dishes was a sort of stepping stone into cooking.”
When a fry cook abruptly quit during a dinner shift, he gladly stepped in. For two years, he kept attending Cornell, but he was simultaneously gaining confidence in a commercial kitchen, working his way through the stations. When he tried his hand at expediting, it was a complete bust; the manager had to take over. But on his second try — on a busy Saturday night — something undeniably sparked. He knew a culinary career was a better fit for him.
“There are some similarities to conducting. You’re orchestrating this symphony as a kitchen. You’re saying, ‘Fire that eggplant parm. Go ahead and drop those mussels,’ so that it all comes together at the same time. You’re directing the timing, and those cooks are an extension of your fingers,” Robert says.
With a new desire to pursue cooking, he began making plans to attend a different New York institution: the Culinary Institute of America. To save money for tuition, he moved back to Oklahoma City to work for his uncle at The Metro that summer. Through common connections, Robert met Chef Kurt Fleischfresser, who says he recognized the same “stick-to-itiveness” in Robert that he possessed himself.
“There’s a passion there, about making something correctly or learning to make something new, and owning it. That’s what I saw in Robert,” Fleischfresser says.
Fleischfresser offered Robert a spot in his Coach House Apprenticeship Program, and the young student jumped at the opportunity to stay in Oklahoma, leaving New York behind.
In 2006, Keith and Heather Paul, founders of A Good Egg Dining Group, recruited Robert to help expand their culinary experiences beyond Cheever’s Cafe and Iron Star Urban Barbecue. At that time, he was executive chef and partner of Oklahoma City Museum of Art Cafe, which he helped open in 2001, but he welcomed the new challenge.
“They allowed me to come in as a partner to their company, but it was really at the infancy stage,” Robert says. “We grew it into 15 restaurants over a period of 12 years.”
Concepts such as Red Prime Steak, The Drake, Barrios, and Tucker’s Onion Burgers took off with his knack for hospitality and number crunching.
“I think he’s a unicorn in the industry,” Lori notes. “He’s not just a brilliant chef, he’s a brilliant businessman.”
“The partners at A Good Egg Dining Group were like family — still are — and working with them was amazing and rewarding,” Robert says.
Business was humming and the partnership was solid, so why the change?
“My wife passed away suddenly in 2015. We had two kids; it was tragic,” Robert says.
Unbeknownst to him at the time, his now-wife Lori was going through a devastatingly similar experience. Her husband died within two weeks of the point when Robert lost his wife, and she also had two kids at home. A mutual friend connected them, hoping they could support each other. Robert and Lori formed a friendship, connecting regularly over casual comfort food. Their bond grew as they were able to relate to one another in a way no one else could.
“That grief and that trauma, that really changed our priorities in life,” Robert says. “When we married in 2016, we said that we were at this stage in our lives where we thought that it was really important we spend time together.”
Lori’s background was in PR and marketing, and she owned SpringBoard, a consulting company. Together, they turned SpringBoard into a food-focused business, then they invested in several new ventures together.
“Where we are today is the story of the two of us, because where I fall short, she excels — and vice versa,” Robert said. “I couldn’t be a consultant, I couldn’t own a cafe, I couldn’t own a bakery on my own.”
Within their establishments, Robert and Lori have cultivated a passion-driven culture by hiring people who are looking for fulfillment beyond a paycheck. Cafe Evoke is a third-wave coffee shop, so baristas are trained to master complex brewing techniques with high-quality ingredients. Likewise, Twisted Tree is one of only a handful of bakeries in the state making European-style bread and pastries.
Today, the Blacks say Edmond feels as warm and familiar as a hometown. The community has embraced them and their businesses, and it’s no wonder: Love is communicated to everyone served. They speak the language fluently.
> Twisted Tree Baking Company, 111 N Broadway STE 3, Edmond; (405) 920-6303; twistedtreebakingcompany.com
> Cafe Evoke, 103 S Broadway, Edmond; (405) 285-1522; cafeevoke.com
