The Resy Hit List: Where In Dallas You’ll Want to Eat in April 2024

As the rage for omakase spreads like wildfire, in Dallas and nationally, there are times when it’s nice to sit and order à la carte, without the $200 per person starting price tag. Jimmy Park’s sushi spot on bar-hopping-friendly Lower Greenville Avenue is perfect for that. (If you are searching for omakase in the same neighborhood, however, Park’s stellar Shoyo is one block down.) An extensive cocktail list and sakes pair well with lower-priced nigiri and sashimi sets. The chefs keep the fun coming with more casual hot bites, like pork jowl skewers, udon curry bowls, oyster gyozas, and shrimp wonton soup. The spot is especially #trending on Thursday nights and weekends, and its appeal isn’t likely to wane anytime soon, so do a little pre-jollity planning to snag that Resy.

In three months since opening, this cowboy-chic chophouse and its bar inside Auberge Resorts’ Bowie House have become the rallying point for cowpoke royalty in Cowtown. Mains are as you’d imagine: dry-aged steaks, bacon-wrapped filet mignon, venison steak, and wild boar chops, followed by a rolling pie cart. Las Vegas-trained chef Antonio Votta goes beyond flair, though, sourcing meat from six Texas ranches — including Taylor Sheridan’s 6666 Ranch — to be grilled over Texas charcoal. Votta skillfully taps into wider Southern delicacies, too, like the pâté of the South, pimento cheese, served in a caddy with French onion and smoked salmon dips, along with a sleeve of Ritz crackers cut tableside. And the beguiling hunk of hummingbird cake could make you momentarily forget about Grandma’s version.

With regular appearances on Food Network, PBS Food, and “Top Chef,” Tiffany Derry is Dallas’s most famous TV chef. Her rise to celebrity was propelled by duck-fat fried chicken, served with drop biscuits and pepper jelly at Roots, the second restaurant she dreamed up with business partner Tom Foley. Dining on jerk swordfish and baby turnip greens with potlikker in a fine-ish dining environment is a particular pleasure. And this is the only place in the world where you can order Derry’s mother’s gumbo, a dish she is so passionate about getting right that she takes her sous chefs to Beaumont so they can experience Mama Cookie’s cooking for themselves.

Call 214-346-4441 for more info.

The first of Greg and Nik Katz’s en vogue restaurants (with Clifton Club and Green Point also in the mix) celebrated its fifth birthday last month — all the more reason to revisit for standbys, like caviar and latkes, matzo ball soup, and that wonderful chicken schnitzel. You also could investigate some recently added dishes: easy-to-eat Roman-style artichokes, bluefin tuna crudo sprinkled with sumac, or a modest-but-mighty half roasted chicken with jus. Imagine it all with a well-rounded wine list or a Ruby Collins with Lady Bird ruby red grapefruit soda — all on one of Dallas’s prettiest patios with palmy Beverly Hills vibes.

When Fernando Barrera put out a call for support for his 13-year-old sandwich gem in northeast Dallas, the city stepped up. In a post earlier this year, Barrera lamented the surmounting challenges of restaurant ownership, worsened by a bout of vandalization. Instead of creating a GoFundMe, he asked followers to remember his tasty food the next time they were hungry. The prospect of permanently losing out on Cubanos with housemade fries, Latin-style crepes, and Chocoflan put a fire in the pants of his followers. In a heartwarming update two weeks later, Barrera shared he was able to repair his broken windows three weeks earlier than anticipated. With patio season in full-swing and super-efficient takeout, it’s still a great time to go.

More info here.

If sipping a round of hibiscus mezcal margs in the light of a cozy fireplace sounds like an acceptable way to begin an evening, this Design District dazzler has your number. Inspired by Mexico City and built by Duro Hospitality (also known for putting on the ritz at Mister Charles, The Charles, and Sister), El Carlos continues a penchant for elegance with an in-house masa program, which translates to mushroom tetelas and duck confit tlacoyos. Mains are cooked on a wood-fired grill, including wagyu New York strips and Berkshire pork al pastor. And there’s the Elegante Experience, one of the city’s more affordable tasting menus, six family-style courses for $99 per person.

Long before the now-closed Khao Noodle Shop put Dallas’s Lao food scene on the national map, Nikki Senephoumy was cooking up larb, Lao sausages, noodles and papaya salads at the back of a strip mall — for 23 years, in fact. Business never recovered its pre-pandemic bustle, according to Senephoumy, so she packed up shop and moved it last month to DanSungSa, a popular late-night Koreatown spot. Now, every day except Monday, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Senephoumy is making good use of an empty kitchen, pleasing old regulars and curious new neighbors with her Lao-Thai recipes.

Pro tip: Arrive between 5:30 and 6 p.m. during the changing of the kitchen guard to get the best of both worlds, with Lao-Thai and Korean menus to order from.

More info here.

If every neighborhood were so lucky to have its own Bobbie’s — a place where people dress up for lunch and eat impeccable salads — the world might be a better place. It comes from Western Addition, the restaurant group behind Park Cities’s il Bracco, but with polished service and a menu encompassing classics like rainbow trout almondine, meatloaf, and tuna burgers, it certainly feels like they took a page from Hillstone, once referred to as America’s favorite restaurant. The architecturally inspiring space was once Dougherty’s Airway Pharmacy. Now, it’s serving up another form of remedy with flawless lunch and dinner service.

The space formerly known as Dallas Chop House reopened in Downtown Dallas after an almost four-year, pandemic-induced closure. Instead of reviving the formerly well-known haunt, DRG Concepts CEO Nafees Alam decided to bring his highly successful steakhouse from downtown Fort Worth to the Big D — but kept Chop House’s famously enormous popovers. There is something for most everyone: Oysters, Chilean sea bass, lobster bucatini — and you guessed it, plenty of butcher cuts with accompaniments like tableside truffle butter. Truffles make another appearance in bartender Ravinder Singh’s truffle Negroni. Heads up: It might change your mind about red wine being the best accompaniment to steak.

Stephan Courseau has become one of Dallas’s most reputed restaurateurs — and his third restaurant, after Knox Bistro and Le Bilboquet, the last of which he brought to Dallas in 2011 after beginning his hospitality career at the New York original — maintains the casual sophistication associated with his concepts. With executive chef R.J. Yoakum, a Thomas Keller alum who arrived last year, it’s possibly getting more buzz now than when it opened in 2019. Brunch is the latest element to be updated by Yoakum, and now includes one of the best examples of a French omelet to be found in Dallas, along with smoked trout Benedict and vegan enchiladas rancheros.

This neighborhood bakery by husband-and-wife team Maria Beccera and Ismael Trejo is bringing new life to the Casa View Shopping Center. Becerra previously worked as a baker at several fine-dining restaurants, including the late Bullion. When the pandemic canceled the couple’s hospitality jobs, they began working towards Lubella’s, named for their daughters, which opened in 2022. The heavily layered croissants and danishes sold alongside single-serving cakes and quiches draw a crowd, along with Becerra’s puffy conchas, and seasonal pan de muerto and Rosca de Reyes. If you’ve already been in for a morning pastry run, remember it for lunch, when croissants are sliced into five different types of savory sandwiches.

There’s a lot you might not know about Brandon and Henry Cohanim’s patio-enhanced sushi bar. It has undergone major changes in the past two years, starting with a new executive chef, Kazuhito Mabuchi, who came from Los Angeles’s two-Michelin-starred Sushi Ginza Onadera in 2022. There’s also now a dedicated buyer in Tokyo who selects top-quality fish to deliver to Mabuchi each Tuesday. The relationship allows the restaurant to bypass distributor selections and offer seasonal fish unavailable to other spots around town.

For a superlative experience at the upgraded Namo, monthly omakase nights are the way to go. It starts with several otsumami (small plates), followed by ten pieces or more of premium nigiri, plus miso soup, tamago, and dessert. You’ll want to have an appetite, just as you will with the new lunch okonomi, a $75 bargain that includes a salad, two sashimi courses, the creamiest chawanmushi in town, six pieces of nigiri, and more.

As Mirador underwent an interior transformation at its penthouse perch, executive chef Travis Wyatt and pastry chef Ruben Toraño devised a new menu for a lunch-only restaurant and special event space. Now open, Mirador has resumed its status as downtown’s poshest place for a midday meal. Former favorites like Parmesan tomato soup, orecchiette, and chicken paillard are still available, alongside new dishes, like beef tartare with harissa and lavash. But to experience the height of their creativity, you’ll want tickets for Modern Afternoon Tea, a Saturday-only, three-course luncheon paired with teas from Mariage Frères and Dallas’s own The Cultured Cup. The meal rightfully begins with scones, jam, and a glass of bubbly (which can definitely be upgraded), and leads into the fanciest presentation of coronation chicken we’ve ever seen, a wagyu sandwich on milk bread, and desserts like a passion fruit Valrhona Itakuja tart.

This Lower Greenville Avenue spot brings vernal vibes year-round. Whether it’s the indoor foliage or the vegetable-forward menu with a whole section dedicated to played-up produce, Sister always feels fresh and a little bit healthier than other splurge-worthy spots. The beets and avocado with tahini are nothing like your mother’s beets, and the shockingly-good charred eggplant dip with crudités shouldn’t be slept on, either. While it’s true the healthiest food group gets a proper spotlight here, meat-eaters will still be satiated with wild “boarnaise” pasta, wagyu short rib, and Akaushi hanger steak with cucumber labneh. And if spring fever is really hitting, see what your date thinks about the $299 item on the cocktail menu: the One Night Stand, which helpfully comes with a stay in Casa Duro, the hotel above the restaurant, and a bottle of bubbles.

2022 was the year Mexican restaurants joined steakhouses and French restaurants in the Dallas-Fort Worth fine dining leagues. The most nationally heralded example is Don Artemio, led by Juan Ramón Cárdenas of “Taco Chronicle” fame and his son, Rodrigo Cárdenas. Along with partner Adrian Burciaga, the team showcases the roasted cabrito of their homeland in Saltillo. Indeed, nearly everything in the restaurant radiates Mexican artisanship, with talavera plates from Puebla, corn for in-house nixtamalized tortillas from Tlaxcala, terra cotta bricks and planters from Saltillo, and wines from Coahuila’s Casa Madero, putatively the oldest winery in the Western Hemipshere. Pro tip: Don’t miss lunch, with tacos filled with housemade chorizo and panela, and of course that cabrito.

Of all the well-seasoned shish kababs, shish tawook, and shawarma to choose from at Open Sesame, you will also want to try falafel’s stouter Levantine cousin: kibbi. Owner Mohammed Kamal’s sister, who oversees the kitchen with her husband, prepares hers with ground beef and cracked wheat, and guests return saying her version reminds them of their mother’s. The six-year-old storefront offers family-pleasing takeout, but the best experience comes with dine-in, when you can choose from ten bottles of Lebanese wine, enjoy halal lamb fresh off the grill, and polish off the knafeh while it’s hot. A second, fast-casual location is slated to open later this year in Richardson.

Call 469-726-2825 for reservations.

For the first time in the metroplex, Indian food is available in a classy space on par with the richness of the cuisine. At this new fine dining restaurant in Las Colinas’ Water Street development, chef Balpreet Singh Chadha aims to showcase all the regions of India — specifically Mangalorean, Goan, Rajasthani, Mughlai, Punjabi, and everything in between. Here, you can stick to usual favorites with more refinement, like free range butter chicken, or chaat with sweet potatoes and starfruit, or goat curry with curds. Exploration is handsomely rewarded, however, with dishes like duck in yogurt-based qorma sauce, scallops recheado with gram flour dumplings, and tandoori tiger prawns prepared in one of three copper tandoor ovens.

Call 972-239-1800 for more info.