DALLAS – If your next fraternal, social, cultural, business or medical conference takes you to Big D, know that it is every bit as sophisticated as Chicago, New York or San Francisco when it come to feeding you well.
It is hard to believe that there are people who can remember a time when people here thought baklava was something you wore on your head and diners who didn’t eat liver weren’t about to eat it just because it had a fancy French name such as foie gras.
But, as the saying goes, that was then; this is now. The proliferation of restaurants in this one-time prairie town boggles the mind. A few years ago, an aspiring chef who wanted to bypass Manhattan’s cutthroat competition was pointed instead toward Dallas.
If you can make it there, she was told, you can make it anywhere.
Dressed up or dressed down, Dallasites are serious about their food. Just pick up one of those magazines stocked in hotel lobbies and see the options for yourself.
On the other hand, part of the fun of eating well in this part of the Lone Star State is finding where locals go – the places you aren’t likely to find in the tour books. The best aren’t necessarily hoity-toity eateries, either.
York St.
Take York St., for example.
Owned by chef Sharon Hage, York St. is a 42-seater in a neighborhood generically known as Old East Dallas. Menus change almost daily, reflecting the owner’s fertile imagination
A quiet, shy person, Hage goes home after closing, sits down at her computer and thinks up what she wants to cook the next day. A devotee of naturally fed meats and seasonally grown vegetables, she prepares meals worthy of anything found in Manhattan – where she once did hard time in Upper East Side restaurants.
When Alice Waters visited Dallas not long ago, she paid a courtesy call to Hage just to have appetizers and a glass of wine. After seeing the menu, Waters stayed.
From a kitchen roughly the size of a modest residential kitchen (tucked in a brick building behind a car repair shop on a semi-bright side street) come such wonders as lavender-roasted quail, Arctic char with pink grapefruit and fennel, and Niman rack of lamb with eggplant ratatouille.
If you like rabbit stew or love sauteed skate, check when you make your reservation. If she can get it, she will. Make a reservation. She is sometimes booked weeks in advance.
Figure on spending $50 to $70 per person for three courses and a glass of wine or champagne. Dress: casual chic.
Matt’s No Place
For bit of laid-back fun and outstanding steaks, there’s Matt’s No Place in the Lakewood shopping center. Until a few years ago when it relocated two doors down, it had an unlisted telephone number.
Chef/owner Matt Martinez is a fourth-generation Texan and a hunter. His menu features venison, quail, rainbow trout, wild boar sausage and a spicy cornbread cake that is to die for.
Usually populated by regulars, Matt’s boasts an assortment of characters, from doctors, musicians and lawyers to microbiologists, bikers and historians.
It’s almost a mistake to order appetizers because the portions are so generous, but the Creek Bottom Shrimp is not to be missed, especially if you like hot ‘n’ spicy.
A party of four or more should order a different entree and share: The catfish with crabmeat stuffing is wonderful, and the bone-in ribeye is arguably the best in town. The veal chop is huge and juicy, but the garlic-lemon-butter sauce of the Shrimp Martinez is perfect with the smoked baked potato roughly the size of Vermont.
Dinner will run between $20 and $50 with wine and beer. If it helps any, Julia Child ate here. Twice.
Ciudad
When Monica Greene opened Ciudad six years ago, a lot of people held their breath. Several restaurants died on the vine in the corner location she’s successfully occupied in the Oak Lawn neighborhood since 1997. The restaurant exudes the feel of Mexico City – where Monica is from. She and her chef return to Mexico at least twice a year to taste what’s new.
The menu changes seasonally, and the Sunday brunch is substantial and full of surprises.
You might be offered Fideo, sauteed vanilla-bean shrimp with chipotle pasta and corn-milk cream; or Pescado Veracruz, a grouper filet served with olives, capers, tomato, leeks, chile broth and nopal (prickly pear cactus); or adobo beef tenderloin topped with Chihuahua cheese and salsa.
Brunch features divine sweet potato pancakes served with caramelized bananas and currants. Outer rooms can be noisy, but the service is cheerful and efficient and a general south-of-the-border conviviality prevails. Plan to spend $30-$40 per person.
Citizen
If sushi or Asian fusion food strikes your fancy, head to Citizen (only a few paces from Ciudad), where the serene atmosphere and feng shui design combine with a superb kitchen to provide a delightful dining experience. Executive chef Chris Ward is literally and figuratively a towering presence – he stands 6-foot-2.
But he also presides over a menu that has remained consistently innovative and very, very good. Whether you want sushi, sashimi, roast duck soup or an extraordinary treatment for your flounder, yellowtail or fork-tender beef, you’ll be glad you found this place.
Be prepared to spend more than $100 for two at dinner – less at lunch – excluding wine.
La Duni
For a variation on a theme of Latin American food, visit La Duni, which Esquire recently cited as one of the best 10 new restaurants in America.
Open for lunch and dinner weekdays but only breakfast and brunch on weekends, it is in the Knox-Henderson shopping area. Whether you go for lunch, brunch or dinner, save room for dessert.
Pastry chef and co-owner Dunia Borga, whose nickname gave the restaurant its own, doesn’t just make dessert, she creates culinary treasures, ranging from Venezuelan chocolate truffle cake to a quatro leches cake, a notch above the traditional tres leches. Don’t worry about pronouncing pastel de banano y trufa chocolate de Maracaibo; just love what she does with bananas and chocolate.
Don’t turn your nose up when you see “sandwiches,” either. Think citrus-marinated pork loin, with mojo, greens, avocado, pickled onions and Manchego cheese in a home-baked popover instead.
Duni can easily feed two for less than $50.
Hotel St. Germain
And then there is the dining room at the tiny Hotel St. Germain in the Uptown neighborhood. It is not possible to eat for $50 here.
Sorbonne-educated Claire Heymann presides over this truly transportive place, which offers an $85 seven-course prix fixe dinner five nights a week. People propose marriage, hold wedding receptions and celebrate anniversaries here. It has the luxe feel of 19th-century France. Chef Chad Martin took the reins when Sharon Hage left to open York St. He was her sous chef.
Martin’s specialties might include beef tenderloin with foie gras, escargot with white truffles, sea bass on lemon risotto and chocolate soup with pistachio nougat.
The restaurant is housed in a boutique hotel that has garnered praise from Gourmet, Town & Country and Zagat – in addition to winning four stars from the Mobil Guide and four diamonds from AAA. It is as close to a perfect dining experience as one need get.
As the Dallas Morning News once noted, a Coca-Cola bottle is kept chilled in a silver ice bucket in much the same way a bottle of Dom Perignon would at the St. Germain. Service is exquisite. The plates are Limoges. The silver is sterling. The food is superb.
Barbec’s
Locals will really know you’ve done your homework if you turn up for breakfast at Barbec’s, another Dallas institution. It’s one of those places you can’t find if you don’t know exactly what to look for.
Located just past White Rock Lake, Barbec’s has been at the same off-the-beaten-track location for more than a quarter-century, and that’s a lifetime-and-a-half in Dallas restaurant years. It’s open from 6:30 a.m. Monday through Saturday, and from 7:30 a.m until 2 p.m. on Sunday. Barbec’s caters to a serious biking, boating and hiking set.
If you spend more than $30 for two at this place you’ll have to be carried out. An extensive menu runs the gamut from pancakes, waffles and omelettes to soups, salads, burgers and steaks, and, yes, chicken-fried steak is on the menu too.
Reminiscent of an old-fashioned diner (located in a brick building instead of a converted train car), this is a bustling, joyful place where in cooler months it’s nice to sit outside. Here you can eat hot and hearty or light and fruity. There isn’t anything you’re likely to come up with for breakfast that they don’t serve. Located near the Arboretum, a favorite tourist destination, it remains populated mainly by those who live, hike, bike or sail in the ‘hood.
For the best directions, call and ask for landmarks.
Bay Leaf
There are several deserving places in Deep Ellum, a section of Dallas that might best be described as the city’s Mini Me answer to New York’s SoHo.
The area is populated by clubs, funky shops and such exceptional restaurants as Bay Leaf, which does eclectic fusion foods, presented in a cosmopolitan atmosphere.
Although the menu changes seasonally, count on crab cakes worthy of the Maryland shore. Chef Michael Weinstein isn’t afraid to plate up pan-roasted striped bass with sage-scented cannellini beans, or a rosemary-marinated pork chop with Granny Smith apple risotto.
Bay Leaf has all this and live jazz too. The area caters to an artsy, hip and happening set in addition to boomers who want to stay in touch with their bohemian side. Bay Leaf serves them well.
Finally, if you’re aching for genuine Texas barbecue, don’t let anyone send you anywhere other than Sonny Bryan’s original location on Inwood. It looks like a dump. It kinda is, but nobody cares. The barbecue is as good as it gets.
Ellen Sweets, who formerly lived in Dallas, is a feature writer at The Denver Post.
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If you go
It’s a good idea to call for specific directions from these Dallas-area restaurant. Some are tucked away in corners and not easy to spot for those unfamiliar with the territory.
Barbec’s
8949 Garland Road
214-321-5597
No credit cards
Open 7 days a week, Closed Sundays at 2 p.m.
Bay Leaf
2820 Commerce St.
214-573-8775
Monday-Thursday 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Friday 11 a.m.-midnight; Saturday 5 p.m.-midnight
All credit cards
Citizen
3858 Oak Lawn
214-522-7253
All credit cards
Lunch Monday-Friday, 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m.; dinner Monday-Thursday, 5:30-10 p.m.; Friday-Saturday 5:30-11 p.m.
Closed Sunday
Cuidad
3888 Oak Lawn Ave., Suite 135
214-219-3141
All credit cards
Open 7 days, dinner only, Sunday brunch 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
Hotel St. Germain
2516 Maple Ave.
214-871-2516
American Express, MasterCard, Visa
Tuesday-Saturday, 7-10 p.m.
La Duni
4620 McKinney Ave
214-520-7300
Amex, Discover Mastercard, Visa
Lunch 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; dinner 2-10 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 5-10:30 p.m. Saturday-Sunday; brunch 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.
Matt’s No Place
6326 LaVista
214-823-9077
All major credit cards
Tuesday-Thursday 5:30-10 p.m., Friday-Saturday 5:30-11 p.m. Closed Sunday and Monday
York St.
6047 Lewis St.
214-826-0968
MasterCard & Visa
Tuesday-Saturday, 6-10 p.m. Closed Sunday and Monday
