Will This Fresno Powerhouse Couple Finally Bring a Michelin Star to Fresno?
- Sarah Hallier
- Mar 28
- 9 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
For decades, Fresno has been the punchline.
It’s the city mentioned in Airplane! as a place no one wants to land, and comedic fodder in late night monologues about farmland and fog. California’s central valley is often described as a pass-through city, somewhere you drive across on the way to somewhere better. It’s a few short hours from San Francisco, just over the grapevine from Los Angeles, a hop skip and jump to Yosemite, and beach towns like Carmel and Pebble Beach are just leisurely day trips away.
But here is the irony.
Fresno County feeds them all (and more).
The citrus sits on Los Angeles tablescapes and the almonds are shipped across the globe. Harris Ranch beef is proudly listed on menus in Orlando, and Ficklin port is poured in New York. Also known as the San Joaquin Valley, this unique area of California may be the breadbasket of the nation, yet rarely treated like a dining destination.
Restaurateurs Tom and DaVita Miller think that is about to change.
And with Chef Max Wasco in their kitchen, Fresno may be closer than you think.
The Man Who Has Something to Prove
Tom Miller did not begin his career in fine dining. His first lessons in hospitality came under fluorescent lights at Chuck E. Cheese, where he worked as a dishwasher at sixteen. He grew up in a large, middle class family with six brothers and a sister, in a household where independence came early and competition was simply part of daily life. In a family that big, you learned quickly how to speak up, how to work hard and how to make your own opportunities.
After high school, Tom joined the Army. The structure suited him, and when he returned home, he went back to restaurants. He learned the mechanics of service from the ground up, and when the opportunity arose to help open new restaurants in California, he accepted without hesitation. To his delight, his first assignment was back in his hometown - Fresno.
In 1994, he helped open one of the first Outback Steakhouse locations in Fresno. Tahoe Joe’s followed in 1996 under the direction of Dave Fansler, and Bulldog Brewing soon after. A stretch in the Bay Area with Macaroni Grill expanded his experience. He stepped into his family’s real estate world for several years, adding another layer of business acumen before ultimately returning to hospitality.
In 2009, he opened Press Box Sports Grill. Nearly two decades later, three locations remain a fixture in Fresno, especially on game nights when the televisions glow and the bar hums with cheering. By most standards, that kind of longevity would be enough.
For Tom and his wife, Davita, it was not.
“We don’t want to just be sports bar people,” he says. “We love it. But it’s time to grow up.”
The first step was a plane ticket to Europe.
The Trip That Changed Everything
Tom and Davita travel with restaurant reservations already secured. When they planned a month in Europe, the itinerary centered on dining rooms rather than landmarks. Three Michelin-starred restaurants in Barcelona, two in Portugal and one in Paris. Each evening offered a study in precision, from the pacing of the courses to the command of the service staff.
What makes the timing significant is that they had already signed a new lease in Fresno before boarding the plane.
At that point, their concept was envisioned as farm-to-table with a lush, garden-forward design. It was elegant and ambitious, but it was not yet calibrated toward Michelin-level execution. That change happened overseas.
Tom and Davita noticed the structure of the meal, the fluency of captains who guided guests course by course, and the discipline behind every plate. One evening at ABaC in Barcelona, dessert arrived with a helium balloon attached. The dining room had been nearly silent for hours, the atmosphere reverent and stoic. Then someone inhaled the helium, breaking the stuffy atmosphere with laughter. Strangers who had spent the evening in whispers began talking to each other across tables.
It was a reminder that excellence and warmth could coexist.
By the time the Millers returned to California, their direction was clearer.
“We knew this was what we wanted to do here,” Davita says.
The ambition was simple: to build something in Fresno that met the standard they had experienced abroad, but to ensure it was also warm and inviting.
From Sports Bar to Saucier
The Millers have built something that represents European technique and California ingredients. Bulle will operate with a captain system, something rarely seen in Fresno. Instead of a server rotating in and out with rehearsed lines, each section is led by someone who knows the menu intimately and understands how they want the guest to experience the food and ambiance throughout their evening.
Tom and Davita talk easily about open-hand wine service and the discipline behind it, about Riedel Maximus glasses designed to enhance aeration and aroma, about choosing the proper vessel for each varietal so nothing is lost between bottle and table. Tom speaks just as deliberately about composed dishes, about moving beyond the predictable trio of protein, starch, and vegetable toward plates in which texture, temperature, and seasoning are carefully balanced, allowing the dish to function as a cohesive whole rather than a series of separate parts.
He sounds like a man who has spent years paying attention to the details most people overlook, to the mechanics that make a dining room feel seamless. There is patience in the way he explains it. It is obvious his experiences have led him to this point.
Still, an idea only goes so far without the right person in the kitchen to execute it properly.
Enter Chef Max Wasco.
The Young Chef with Michelin Muscle Memory
Max Wasco is not from Fresno.
He grew up surfing and fishing in Newport Beach. Working in restaurants from the time he was fifteen, he entered a culinary competition in his senior year of high school and placed in the top three out of twenty-five teams. That competition happened to be in Fresno.
He earned a partial scholarship to the Culinary Institute of America in New York. But his determination didn’t stop there.
After graduating, he landed at Alinea in Chicago, the three-Michelin-star restaurant that has long defined American fine dining, and immersed himself in a kitchen where precision was absolute. From there, he moved through a small constellation of Michelin‑star kitchens, including Quince in San Francisco, Addison in San Diego and Mansion by Joël Robuchon in Las Vegas, each one sharpening his sense of discipline and control at the very top of the craft.
His career continued at Nobu in Newport Beach, Callie in San Diego and Le Jardinier in Miami. Today, Max’s resume reads like a map of Michelin’s highest peaks.
Davita knew almost instantly that Max was their guy.
“He was driven,” Davita says. “He’s young, wants to make a name for himself, and we immediately saw the passion.”
For Max, the decision felt circular. “My grandparents had a farm here [in Sanger],” he says. “It felt full circle - Bringing everything I’ve learned back to Fresno.”
He is classically French-trained but brings Asian influence through family roots. He talks about breaking rules, having more fun, and making food exciting instead of stiff.
His dry-aged Wagyu with blue cheese espuma and beef sauce is not something Fresno has seen before, and neither is the level of technique.
Training a staff to Michelin standards in a market without a deep fine dining bench has been the hardest part. These are instincts and repetitions developed inside Michelin kitchens. They are not easily taught overnight.
But Max believes Fresno can rise to meet the demands.
The Feminine Force Behind the Room
If Bulle carries ambition in the kitchen and structure in its service model, its emotional architecture belongs to Davita.
Her influence begins long before a guest ever opens a menu. It is present in the density of the velvet and in the curve of a banquette. She approached the space with the same seriousness others reserve for menu development. Fabric samples were studied for durability and color depth. Rub counts were compared. Lighting was adjusted until it cast warmth rather than glare. The crushed velvet chosen for the dining room is rated to endure years of use without thinning or fading, a detail she can recite as easily as a contractor.
The pink quartz table that anchors what will become known as the Davita booth was selected with precision. From that vantage point, the entire room unfolds — the entrance, the open kitchen, the bar. It is a table designed for presence - birthdays, girls’ nights, special anniversaries. Guests will be able to request it by name.
Her understanding of hospitality is informed by something more intimate than training manuals. She is the youngest of six and the only daughter, raised alongside five brothers in a large, close-knit family where food was central to gathering. Watching her mother prepare elaborate meals for both immediate and extended family shaped her early sense of what hospitality should feel like.
She speaks openly about the reality that women often determine where dinner happens. That awareness manifests in comfort, texture, and an atmosphere that encourages conversation. At the same time, she insisted on the inclusion of a whiskey room, recognizing that elegance must accommodate more than one expression of taste.
Professionally, Davita built her career as a mortgage broker, a field highlighted by calculation and risk assessment. That background lends a steadiness to Bulle’s foundation. Her experience in hospitality began in 2021 when she became co-owner of Press Box with Tom, helping grow the business and build the operational foundation that made a concept like Bulle possible. Years as a partner at Press Box allowed her to observe the mechanics of staff culture and the subtle ways leadership shapes morale. She understands numbers, timelines, and liability, but she also understands people. Those lessons carry forward here.
She discusses the build-out without romance. There were nights spent scrolling through lighting catalogs until nearly midnight, weekends installing fixtures by hand, moments when permit delays made the opening feel distant. There were tears and fatigue, and also persistence.
When she walks into the finished space, she describes a feeling of arrival. The room holds the atmosphere she envisioned from the beginning: intimate, textured, assured. Her belief in Fresno surfaces here most clearly. She frames the restaurant as evidence of what the city can sustain.
Bulle carries Tom’s drive and Chef Max’s pedigree, but its pulse is unmistakably Davita’s.
The Dream Team
No fine dining restaurant operates on food alone.
General Manager Devon Carbajal will oversee front-of-house operations and help execute the captain system at scale, maintaining the service culture from day one. His role will be critical in translating vision into consistency and ensuring that Bulle feels polished but never pretentious.
Tom brings operational experience and a relentless belief in Fresno. Davita brings design, emotional intelligence, and vision. Max brings Michelin-level rigor and global perspective, and Devon offers the discipline and steadiness required to translate ambition into nightly consistency. Add Conner Jessop, beverage director and mixologist, and 80 employees to the pack, and this dream team is set to bring Bulle to life.
The City That Is Hard to Love Back
For Tom, success at first was simple.
“Just getting the doors open,” he laughs. That is accomplishment enough. But then comes the larger question.
Is Fresno ready?
Tom’s outlook is infectious, and he flips one of our last questions around.
“Is Michelin ready to come to Fresno?” he says with that mischievous look in his eye.
Fresno ranks as the thirty-third largest city in the United States and the fifth largest in California, placing it among markets that Michelin has already acknowledged elsewhere. Cities of similar scale have cultivated national recognition and built dining cultures that command attention. Sacramento holds multiple stars. Yountville and other parts of Napa Valley have long been recognized, and even Phoenix has earned its place in the guide. Fresno operates at the same population and economic scale, with an agricultural foundation that rivals any region in the state.
Why not here and why not now?
Rewriting the Narrative
There is an unmistakable current running through this project, a steady determination that feels earned. Fresno has spent decades occupying an awkward space in California’s cultural narrative, often described as a place people leave in search of refinement elsewhere and occasionally reduced to a backdrop rather than a destination. That reputation has stuck with us, even as the region sustains much of what the state celebrates.
The Central Valley’s agricultural abundance is not theoretical. Farmers’ markets spill over with stone fruit at the height of summer. Line-caught fish from the California coast can reach local kitchens within hours. Eggs from nearby farms carry yolks so vividly colored they border on luminous. Mary’s Free-Range Duck, produce from Zion Farm, and sea urchin brought in by Newport divers can coexist on a single plate without crossing state lines. The proximity to the coast, to Napa, to Los Angeles, to Yosemite and Carmel, has long made Fresno a convenient point on a map, but convenience has never been the same as recognition.
Bulle emerges within that tension - in the belief that a city capable of producing this level of ingredient and talent should also be capable of sustaining dining that reflects it.
Fresno is two and a half hours from nearly everything California romanticizes.
So maybe we do not need to leave.
Will Bulle earn a Michelin star?
If you know Tom, one word answers are not his thing. So when we asked him to explain the meaning behind the name Bulle, he paused to discuss his answer with enthusiasm and a smirk.
“When you celebrate, there are bubbles. When you relax in a bath, there are bubbles. When you cook and something begins to transform, there are bubbles. Ideas pop like bubbles,” he says. “The hope is that when guests walk through the doors, they feel like they are floating through something new.”
For Fresno, that may prove to be the most important shift of all. While no one can promise a Michelin star, the city is no longer waiting for recognition to arrive.
It is preparing to earn it.