Chef Caleb Stangroom was born in New Hampshire, a place that is likely as foreign to Okies as Oklahoma is to Hampshireans (no idea what they’re actually called). Most of his life, though, the founder of Tiger Style – the food, not the Kung Fu style popularized by Wu-Tang Clan – lived and worked in Missouri, his mother’s home state. 

“Cooking for me, at first, was a way to connect with my mom,” Stangroom said. “My parents divorced before I was two, so cooking was time I could spend with my mom, who was raising two boys as a single mom.”

The family was in Springfield for Stangroom’s formative years, and it was that community that provided his first hospitality jobs. At 23 he was named executive chef at Hotel Vandivort, a AAA 4 Diamond hotel. He spent time between Colorado, Nashville, and Oklahoma City over the next several years, including a stage at Vast.

“I came for a summer stage when Chefs Kurt Fleischfresser and Kevin Lee were still there, and made a solid friend group, so I looked for chances to come back,” he said. “Chef Josh Valentine hired me as his sous chef when Livegrass opened in Edmond (ed. June 2020). After it closed, I bounced around during COVID, landing back in Oklahoma City.”

Eventually, Stangroom assumed the executive chef role at Bradford House, the gig that brought him to the attention of Oklahoma City’s culinary community. From the beginning, it was clear that Stangroom had his own voice and style. The food wasn’t just good; it was creative, flavorful, interesting, and complex. Every city needs new jolts of inspiration and new contributors to a culinary landscape to get out of the ruts that regions create: pizza, burgers, fried chicken, tacos, steak, etc. Stangroom is almost certainly one of those voices, an appropriate office for someone who takes much of their aesthetic inspiration from Wu-Tang, Tiger Style, and hip hop.

“The idea for Tiger Style started in Nashville three or four years ago,” Stangroom said. “It evolved over time, but it began as an a la carte menu of what I think of as Midwestern street food.” 

Given that the Midwest doesn’t have the kiosks and street stalls of better known world markets like Mexico, Vietnam, Turkey, etc., using the term “street food” in Oklahoma City doesn’t evoke a ton of archetypal images, until he fills in the examples. “Think gas station food or state fair food,” he said. “And then I put a Japanese twist on those ideas.”

It’s not just Midwestern either. Other than Valentine, Stangroom is the only chef of any name in the metro who unapologetically uses head cheese as an entree item. (Side note: I’m convinced that if chefs start referring to it as cabeza – as with tacos – more people would be less squeamish about the product.) For a recent pop-up at Tiny Bubbles, the first tasting menu for Tiger Style, he featured fried head cheese atop duck fat pickled cabbage. Yes, the combination sounds like something a stoned chef concocts after closing late and raiding the walk-in, but in Stangroom’s hands, it’s delicious, and some would say “elevated,” a word almost as obnoxious as “foodie.” He also had a fried head cheese burger on rotating special at Bradford House, and it was easily one of the best burgers in OKC. 

So to say that Stangroom’s influences extend beyond the Midwest and beyond Japanese twists is simply to report on what’s in the dish in front of you. At the same pop-up, he served hamachi prepared in pastrami style, and it was the best dish of the night. It’s not just the combining of forms that works; it’s Stangroom’s uncanny ability to combine disparate elements to create a coherent dish. And to be clear, one of the dishes that got people’s attention was cacio e pepe ramen, which he served at the first Tiger Style pop-up at the now defunct GHST, so his influences seems to be drawn more from what he loves than from a geographic or aesthetic region, an approach that usually leads to great food – respect the origins and products, but don’t be bound by rules when breaking them leads to deliciousness. 

If you haven’t tried his food yet, you have a couple chances coming up quickly. His next pop-up is September 30 at Crown Room, Chef Eric Smith’s Western Ave. restaurant. That will be a ticketed event with a seated dinner, but tickets will be in short supply. 

In October – date not set – he’ll be popping up in The Creamery in Edmond with what he’s calling a fast food inspired tasting menu – so expect stuff like brilliant crunch wrap supremes. It will be a seated, ticketed dinner too, but much more playful in content than your typical seated pop-up dinners. 

“The pop-ups have been my way of figuring out what Tiger Style’s menu will be when it becomes a brick and mortar, because that has been the goal all along,” Stangroom said. “I now have it narrowed down to about 14 items, sort of like what Chef Jeff Chanchaleune has done so well at Ma Der.” 

Stangroom posts all his upcoming pop-ups on his social media accounts, so follow him at @chef_stilts_ on Instagram.