Where To Eat Now

Where to eat in Dallas right now: 10 top restaurants with brand-new brunches

Brunch is one of our favorite topics. Benedicts, waffles, scrambles, mimosas — they're always on our minds. We think about them every day, not just on the weekends. We're like brunch fiends. We keep a tally and add to it when a new one comes along, whether it's a new restaurant that has just added brunch to its lineup or an old favorite that's updated its menu with new dishes.

After some studious searching, we present the newest brunches in town:

Americano
Restaurant at The Joule has weekend brunch with Italian-American dishes and Italian-inspired cocktails. Options include Nutella-filled doughnuts; ciabatta French toast with blueberry-maple syrup; and a breakfast pizza topped with sausage gravy, potatoes, and an egg. You can also order lunch items, such as sandwiches and salads. Cocktails include the Cafe Americano with Campari, vermouth, cold-brew coffee, and soda and a Calabrian breakfast cocktail with Earl Grey gin, lemon, and orange marmalade. Saturday, 11 am-2 pm, and Sunday, 11 am-3 pm.

Barley & Board
Denton brewpub serves a slew of great dishes, including blueberry pancakes; porridge with dates, dried apricots, pecans, and toasted malt; frittata with bacon, shallots, cheddar, and fried oysters; and an 8-ounce hanger steak with eggs and potatoes. The smoked salmon scramble has eggs and spinach, with potatoes and sourdough toast. There's also a masa corn cake with chorizo and a sunny-side-up egg. Saturday and Sunday, 10 am-2 pm.

Cru
Wine bar mini-chain has launched a brunch menu with new eats and drinks. Short-rib rancheros come with eggs and pepper Jack flatbread. An omelet with shiitake mushrooms, goat cheese, tomatoes, and spinach comes with rosemary potatoes. The drink list has twists on brunch drink classics that incorporate wine-infused mixers instead of liquor. For example, the mojito contains Tekeen Cucumber Lime, a brand that uses agave nectar and orange wine, and the Bloody Mary mixes Ty Ku premium sake. Sunday, 10:30 am-3 pm.

Mi Dia From Scratch
Chef Gabriel DeLeon is opening a second branch in West Plano Village, on the east side of the Dallas North Tollway and Parker Road. It's a blend of Mexico City recipes with Tex-Mex and Santa Fe flavors, and it boasts a weekend brunch. The menu includes skirt steak with eggs, potatoes, street corn, and black beans; Belgian waffles with agave syrup and blueberry-maple sausage; breakfast tacos with eggs, bacon, and chorizo; and chilaquiles. Saturday and Sunday, 11 am-2:30 pm.

Mudhen Meat and Greens
Dallas Farmers Market restaurant has a new weekend brunch with a healthy-ish theme. Migas use brand-name Vital Farms eggs and corn tortillas, baked and topped with avocado-tomatillo salsa and green chile pork. The James Bond Breakfast has scrambled eggs, bacon, whole wheat toast, and black coffee. There's a green eggs and ham Benedict, whole wheat pancakes, and a selection of egg scrambles. Saturday and Sunday, 10 am-3 pm.

Princi Italia
North Dallas Italian has an updated brunch menu and new drinks to match. There's an egg white omelet; apple-cinnamon French toast; and an Italian ranchero, a corn tortilla with Italian sausage, fingerling potatoes, and yellow tomato ranchero sauce. The scramble has artichokes, spinach, shiitake mushrooms, and avocado, with Tuscan potatoes. A beignet has honey goat cheese and fresh berry compote. New sips include blood-orange mimosa, red sangria, strawberry elderflower cooler, and blackberry and limoncello champagne. Sunday, 10:30 am-3 pm.

Sea Breeze Fish Market & Grill
Plano seafood spot now serves weekend brunch to early risers, with blackened redfish with biscuits and red-eye gravy, scallop eggs Benedict, shrimp and grits, and smoked salmon hash. Sides include asparagus with hollandaise sauce, and sautéed Brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes. Saturday and Sunday, 10 am-3 pm.

Top Knot
Restaurant atop Uchi has weekend brunch starring its signature dishes: miso-caramel cinnamon pull-apart nabe and hot fried-chicken Benedict on a biscuit with smoked gravy and fried egg. The Top Knot Breakfast consists of crispy rice, charred salmon, egg, sunomono, nori, bonito, and miso soup. The bacon breakfast bun has Canadian bacon and pimento cheese on a Parker House roll. Sunday, 11 am-3 pm.

Truck Yard
Outdoor hangout celebrates its new brunch with a boozy lineup that includes a "bucket o' mimosas" — a bottle of sparkling wine with your choice of two mixers that include blood orange, grapefruit, guava, and pomegranate. A Shock Top beer drink has Deep Eddy's peach vodka and lemon, a Revolver Blood & Honey beer is spiked with blood-orange shandy, and a root beer float consists of spiked root beer with ice cream from Motor Sisters. Eats come from food trucks, and sandwiches come from Truck Yard's in-house cheesesteak shack. Sunday, 11 am-2 pm.

Wayward Sons
Greenville Avenue restaurant offers brunch with a serious foodie approach. Dishes include avocado toast, duck-egg shakshuka, chilaquiles, and steak and eggs. French toast comes crusted in cornflakes, and there's very local granola from neighboring Green Grocer. Other dishes include blueberry-ricotta pancakes, a grilled-cheese sandwich with decadent Taleggio cheese, bubble and squeak hash-browns (a favorite of chef Graham Dodds), brûléed Texas grapefruit, and Homestead Heritage grits. Saturday and Sunday, 11 am-4 pm.

B&B Brekkie from Barley & Board.

Barley & Board/Facebook

B&B Brekkie from Barley & Board.

brunch where-to-eat

Relocation News

Dallas foodie fave restaurant Cris and John relocates after 7 years

Cris and John

Cris and John tray

A major Dallas foodie favorite is on the move: Cris and John Vietnamese Street Food, is leaving its location in Far North Dallas at 5555 Preston Oaks Rd, and moving yet further north to 6090 Campbell Rd., in a shopping center at the corner of Preston Road.

The move is in response to a "problem" that every restaurant wants: Too many customers, and not enough room. According to co-owner Cristina Mendez, the relocation has been in the works for years, although it got derailed by the pandemic in 2020.

"We considered a lot of factors for our relocation such as staff, vendors, and rent," Mendez says. "This little spot we’re in now really exceeded our expectations of what Cris and John would become."

They're planning to move in early June, and will remain open at their current location until shortly before the move takes place.

Mendez and her husband John Pham opened Cris and John in 2018, based on Pham's first-hand knowledge of Vietnamese street food, combined with Mexican cuisine in a menu featuring pho noodles, dumplings, and birria bao buns.

They earned lots of attention for their unique Vietnamese-Mexican fusion, in outrageous dishes such as their pho-rrito, featuring all the ingredients of pho wrapped into a tortilla, and its spinoff, the ramenrrito, with all the ingredients of ramen stuffed into a burrito.

Dishes like these not only turned them into a trendy Instagram favorite, it got them on the radar of Nickelodeon, who recruited them to participate in a national celebration of Nickelodeon cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants. The 2024 promotion took place in a dozen cities including Dallas, with select restaurants called on to create their own version of the cartoon's signature Krabby Patty sandwich. Cris and John was among the 10 restaurants in Dallas that participated.

The ensuing growing popularity brought a need for greater space and especially more parking than they had in their original space.

"John and I are there everyday and that really allows us to listen to our customers and what they need," Mendez says. "We’re so blessed to have customers that will wait in line and that are so patient with us. So when we started looking for a new location, parking was a priority, followed by getting a bigger space to allow more seating."

Comments on their Instagram expressed approval, such as "Praise the Lord.... parking is atrocious but the food delicious."

The new dining room will seat a little over 100 guests — which helps offset the fact that it's 3 and 1/2 miles north of their previous location, further away from central Dallas.

"I think a lot of people were hoping for us to open in the heart of Dallas, but Cris and John started in north Dallas and it only felt right to keep it in the neighborhood," Mendez says. "We’re hoping this new location can be what we couldn’t give Cris and John before."

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