Dinner Is Growing
New downtown Dallas restaurant will devote entire room to indoor farm
The new downtown Dallas restaurant Bullion, from former Mansion on Turtle Creek chef Bruno Davaillon, opens in October with a feature you won't find at other restaurants in town: an indoor farm.
Bullion is opening at 400 S. Record St. in downtown Dallas, in the former Belo Building, which is being given a massive upgrade by the Hartland-Mackie family, with a new lobby, sky garden, fitness center, and conference center.
Bruno has partnered with Dallas Urban Farms owners Jody and Max Wall to install an indoor vertical farm where he will hydroponically grow herbs, vegetables, and lettuces to service the restaurant. Bullion is the first Dallas restaurant to grow plants from seedlings on the property.
The farm will be located in the catering kitchen on the second floor of the restaurant, occupying a 40-square-foot space. It is a self-contained structure utilizing ebb and flow irrigation. The system will flood the growing trays with a nutrient solution and cycle the remaining into a reservoir.
The farm will be made up of two growing racks, approximately 5 feet wide, each with four shelves, and will have four vertical tiers. Each shelf will have 6 feet of growing space, for a total of 80 square feet.
It will have a 40-gallon nutrient tank on the bottom of each rack. Nutrients are carried up through plumbing on the side of the rack and then drained back into the tank.
The levels are individually lit with four horticulture full spectrum lights, and each tray will grow a particular item. The opening produce list includes: little gem lettuce, Merveille des quatres saisons lettuce, micro cilantro, micro red sorrel, micro burnet, sweet Thai basil, basil genovese, marjoram, oregano, lemon balm and chives.
General manager is Victor Rojas, who previously was with Flora Street Cafe and Stephan Pyles; he's procured partnerships for Bullion with the finest companies for service and tableware, such as Christofle, Bernardaud, and Garnier-Thiebaut.
"I'm so excited to have the opportunity to create a new restaurant for Dallas," Davaillon says in a release. "The building, and the downtown location, makes this project very special. I'm ready to write this next culinary adventure."
CORRECTION: This story originally misstated the amount of growing space and has been updated with the correct square footage.