Arjav Ezekiel and Tracy Malechek-Ezekiel
Birdie's | Austin
NOVEMBER 2023
After graduating the University of Houston with a degree in hospitality management, Tracy Malechek-Ezekiel spent time in Spain, browsing the local markets. She moved to Chicago to work at Rising Star alum Jason Hammel’s Lula Cafe, loving the restaurant’s focus on local agriculture. After a few years, she enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park. She then moved down to New York City and worked for fine dining hotspots like Cru, Del Posto, and Blue Hill. Eventually, she joined the team at Gramercy Tavern under Rising Stars alum Michael Anthony, working her way up to sous chef. In 2015, she joined the opening team at Untitled at the Whitney, where she met her future husband and business partner, Arjav Ezekiel.
Born in New Delhi and raised in Portland, Oregon, Arjav Ezekiel grew up in a hospitality family: his parents worked in the industry, running popups and dinner parties. After college, he moved to Washington D.C. to start a law career, but it wasn’t for him. So, he found work as a backwaiter at The Source, and was promoted to service captain within a year. He then moved to Komi, the 14-table fine dining restaurant, which taught Ezekiel the importance of growing a culture within a restaurant, while developing his palate for wine. In 2015, he moved to New York where he took up a management job at Untitled. The duo moved to Austin in 2018 with hopes of opening their own restaurant.
Tracy and Arjav opened Birdie’s in July 2021 as chef and beverage director, respectively. Their relaxed counter service model, along with the caliber of their wine program—and the execution and hyper-fixation on seasonality in the food program—serves as a bastion for a new way of thinking about elevated service. Tracy and Arjav are able to offer their employees liveable wages, extensive paid time off, and a number of other benefits due to their commitment to their reimagined business model.
2023 StarChefs Austin-San Antonio Rising Stars Award Winners
