hither the chef-driven restaurant, the stand-alone room blossoming from a former dry cleaner or sports bar or neighborhood pharmacy? It’s a declining species, the small room crowded with tables and stone accents and a chef in pressed whites leaning at the edge of the open kitchen, wiping plates and arranging…
By the turn of the 20th century, the Irish saloon began to take on a mainstream role in American cities. As the great potato famine in Ireland in 1845 forced many to migrate to the States, the traditions and lifestyle of the group came with [them]. —BlackFinn Restaurant & Saloon…
Shareholders of Wichita-based Lone Star Steakhouse & Saloon approved a cash buyout late Tuesday by Dallas-based Lone Star Funds for $27.35 a share, which means Lone Star Steak will now officially emanate from the Lone Star State. The price is a boost from the contested offer of $27.10 Lone Star…
The tragically defunct (er, bankrupted) Jeroboam Urban Brasserie will soon have its Kirby Building corpse reanimated to swim with the fishes. Mike Hogue, founder of American Limos & Transportation and Go Fish Restaurant & Lounge in Addison, plans to transform it into Dallas Fish Market, an upscale fishmonger serving fresh…
Chophouse boilerplate is as follows: plush fabrics, the iceberg wedge, jewel case wine rooms cuddling cult Cabernets and pompous Bordeaux, the double-cut pork chop, magnums and jeroboams assembled in decorative huddles in banquet nooks, acres of paneling and shiny brass chandeliers and sconces set to simulate flickering candles. Servers wear…
Use of the “royal” in Asian restaurant titles is rampant: Royal China Restaurant, Royal Chinese Restaurant and Royal Thai in Dallas, plus Royal East Asian Cuisine in Denton. Add to that list Royal Chopstix, five of them (a sixth on Parker Road in Plano was cut down earlier this year)…
In the thick of country pitch-black, it’s hard to perceive the grandeur of Four Winds Steakhouse scenery. The night constricts everything to the narrow cone of headlights. The long, twisty pavement ribbon off of FM 47, wood fencing on its flanks, unravels just a few feet at a time. A…
If there’s one thing Lee Foster Fuqua won’t get caught doing, it’s making Texas plonk. (We call bad wine shee-yit, not plonk, a Texas wine cynic might correct.) But we’re not cynical. We have faith that Dallas can be home to wines that won’t make the French scream “Disney!” Fuqua,…
First, a rat. Next, a load of bullshit. Can’t wait to see what McDonald’s serves up for Thanksgiving. See, Chrissy Haley isn’t suing the Southlake McDonald’s and its corporate parent for $1.7 million just because she and her nanny found a dead rat in her Bacon Ranch Salad last summer…
Meditate. Live purely. Be quiet. Do your work, with mastery. Buddha said that. Shinsei borrowed it. This isn’t surprising. All manner of restaurants and nightclubs have borrowed Buddhist trappings to dropkick hipness into the vibe, which there isn’t very much of in Buddhism save for silence and the occasional “om.”…
He knew he was too old for nightclubs when they suddenly became an annoyance—strange for a guy who’s reaped millions from clubs such as Marquee and Light in New York and Light Bellagio, Caramel and Mist in Las Vegas, the latter three sold to MGM-Mirage in 2003. But it’s why…
Grill on the Alley is a New American sucker punch; a dining blitzkrieg, albeit one leavened with polished elegance if you don’t count the cheeseburger. And even that is shaped from certified Angus beef and has earned a “classic” designation. The Grill is a New American temple outfitted in an…
Luqa restaurant along with Petrus Lounge and Dallas Roof Gardens will open downtown on Main Street next Tuesday after a string of missed opening dates spanning the last year and a half. The opening spur? The nearly $6 million, 400-seat complex risked losing its eligibility for a tax subsidy if…
Yutaka is nothing if not a hole in the wall—a postmodern orifice at that. Bored out of a strip mall just north of the Hard Rock Café on McKinney Avenue, Yutaka has massive floor-to-ceiling pipes with huge bolts secured to fittings with large nuts. The pipes crowd out the cash…
When Kenyon Price rhapsodizes about Isabella’s, his new Italian restaurant set to spring from Stonebriar Commons in Frisco, he speaks as though it were an actual lady. “She’s well-traveled. Her homes are in Lombardy, Veneto and Tuscany. She’s a very forward-thinking Italian,” he says of the restaurant allegedly conceived in…
In Grotto there is a painting of a nude woman painting a cityscape. This is important. Because nothing encapsulates the complete Grotto experience like this image, tucked into one of the cartoonish murals smeared across the walls. “On the walls, our Felliniesque murals reflect the festive traditions of Italy,” reads…
Last time chef Tony Gardizi’s name was linked to a startup menu he was grinding Parmesan at Vino & Basso, the Italian restaurant and wine bar in the former Toscana space that collapsed under the withering fusillade of legal briefs and changed locks. Sometime after that he showed up at…
California: ocean winds, sunny days, Hollywood glamour, cocktail-like fusions of culture, varied landscapes and traffic. California cuisine: fresh, light and healthy. When I heard the name Catalina Room and read talk of the Golden State on the restaurant’s Web site, I wondered if the Golden State could migrate successfully into…
Merkow’s steak is an ace of spades and a seven of hearts. Those are the cards Merkow’s Seafood & Steak owner Gregg Merkow was dealt when he pocketed $561,195 last year in a poker tournament at the Grand Casino Tunica in Mississippi. He used this win to capitalize his restaurant,…
Double Wide founder Jim Siebert, who left the Deep Ellum bar earlier this year, is no longer involved a bid to resuscitate the legendary Trader Vic’s restaurant once tucked in the circa 1967 Dallas Hilton Inn on Mockingbird Lane and set to reopen in the Hotel Palomar slowly coalescing in…
As of this writing, the spinach tragedy seems to be abating. Despite The Wall Street Journal’s headline “Spinach’s pain is arugula’s gain,” a New York Times dispatch revealed several East Coast grocery stores began restocking the iron-rich foliage as federal officials continued to reassure the public that the stuff was…
The number of times Dallas has attempted to coach pizza to at least mediocrity seems uncountable. Of course, it’s possible we never really tried to perfect pizza. It’s possible we just put enough effort into these pies to differentiate them from cardboard. They still sell like hotcakes, after all. Some…
