There’s this thing that chef Robbie Nowlin does on his @chef_driven Instagram feed. In frame after frame, he’s hoisting up people in his arms in front of the kitchen pass at Allora, the new Italian restaurant at the Pearl where he’s the executive chef.

In one, it’s chef Jason Dady, for whom Nowlin worked at The Lodge in San Antonio. In another, it’s Bistr09 chef and co-owner Lisa Astorga Watel, who’s married to another of Nowlin’s former bosses, chef Damien Watel from the Chez Vatel Bistro days. Friends from old jobs, local celebrities, superfans. Large and small, he lifts them all.