Uptown Dallas BBQ joint beguiles with more than the usual brisket

Restaurant newcomer 18th & Vine BBQ has set an opening date: October 6. It comes from husband-and-wife team Matt and Kimi Dallman, who took their inspiration from famous Kansas City haunts such as Arthur Bryant's, Gates, and Oklahoma Joe's (now Joe's Kansas City).

The restaurant is at 4100 Maple Ave., across from Crow Holdings' Old Parkland business offices.

In July, they formed a partnership with chef Scott Gottlich, who had a sudden propitious burst of availability, because he'd recently closed his fine-dining restaurant Bijoux.

"Traditional Kansas City BBQ will always be a part of the menu options for those interested in a pure barbecue experience," Dallman says. "However, the collaboration between myself and Scott gives us the opportunity to combine talents and knowledge of a classically trained chef with a self-taught pitmaster to push the boundaries of what can be accomplished with smoke and other barbecue techniques."

A portion of the menu offers traditional Kansas City barbecue plates. The other is a selection of "composed chef-created dishes."

Starters include potato skins, rib tips, a "BBQ salmon spread," and a veggie dip. There are three salads, including a Caesar and a chopped salad with hearts of palm. Perhaps the hearts of palm is the chef's touch.

Meats include brisket, pulled pork, chicken, sausage, ribs, burnt ends, and a cauliflower "steak." Sides are traditional: fried okra, apple-cider slaw, pit beans, jalapeno-cheese grits, collard greens, and seasoned French fries. The $8 price for the sides, not so traditional; maybe that's the chef touch?

Five sandwiches, priced from $12 to $14, run from chopped brisket to pulled pork with slaw to salmon with avocado to a brisket grilled cheese.

At dinner, there are five entrees that include gnocchi with rib meat for $21, grouper with sunchokes and beets for $29, and a strip steak with mashed potatoes and rapini for $38. Now we are talking some chef-created dishes, yeah.

There are a half dozen mixologized cocktails for $10, and beers on tap that are almost exclusively from Dallas or Texas.

18th & Vine BBQ will be open daily for lunch and dinner. A quaint upstairs bar/live music venue called The Roost will offer a separate bar experience and be open every night. The entire space is 3400 square feet with 100 seats downstairs in the main dining area and 30 seats upstairs at The Roost.

The environment, described in a release as "comfortable yet casually chic," was designed by Brooke Roberson Interiors with build out by Mitchell Garman Architects.

Gottlich says he's "ecstatic" to be involved in something so different from what he's done in the past. "I never would have thought barbecue would be my next project, but it's like it was meant to be," he says.

Dallman grew up in Kansas City with a deep love and appreciation of barbecue. In 2001, he graduated from the University of Kansas, married a Texas girl, and moved to Dallas. After spending several years missing the barbecue of his youth, he found a smoker and dedicated himself to learning everything he could about smoking meat. He has been catering for 10 years but developed his craft through the BBQ competition circuit and competing in events like the American Royal.