On one hand, the West End is a historic district slag heap, a once-bustling entertainment district reduced to has-been diversion rubble by obsolescence and maybe a few things named Victory, West Village and The Shops at Legacy. The last strands of has-been evidence you can count on a few fingers:…
Hotel Lumen bills itself as an enlightened hotel. It “illuminates its sophisticated setting” with “light-themed” artwork and a “vibrant retro feel.” Enlightened. Illuminates. Lumen. A pattern blooms. Suddenly, a contrarian element cuts through the glow racket. Social, the “swanky” restaurant tucked in the bowels of the enlightened Lumen, is dark…
N9NE Steakhouse is set to open in Victory Park January 18. N9NE (pronounced “nine”) is the “signature” property of Las Vegas-based N9NE Group, parent of Ghostbar and founded by Michael Morton (son of Morton’s the Steakhouse founder Arnie Morton) and Scott DeGraff, who operate restaurants and nightclubs in Chicago, Las…
We would like CHIC from Barcelona to become a welcoming oasis in Dallas. We want people to think of Chic when they think of Barcelona. We want people to think of Barcelona when they think of CHIC. Thus reads the Chic from Barcelona “vision” statement, a piece of circular thinking…
They’re relics: Stephan Pyles’ bone-in cowboy rib eye and Dean Fearing’s lobster tacos. They cling to evolving menus like vestiges from a bygone era when Texas mattered. Southwestern cuisine is dead. It went out with a wheezy whimper. The city’s SW power trio—Dean Fearing, Stephan Pyles and Avner Samuel—who were…
Gershwin’s, the 20-year-old classic that thrust its distended belly skyward last June, is about to roll over and play living. In mid-January, the former Gershwin’s space will reopen as Saltwater Willy’s—an identical twin of the casual dining concept that debuted in front of Grapevine Mills more than a year ago…
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…
