News You Can Eat

Dallas restaurants play with food and more newsy tidbits

Dallas-area restaurants are going crazy with summer menus this year. Seasonality is surging as a bigger, more mainstream trend, and restaurants are becoming more nimble and responsive. Seasonal dishes give diners the chance to enjoy a restaurant they already know, as if for the first time.

Dig in to this summer 2016 roundup of restaurant news:

Edoko Sushi & Robata is now open at CityLine in Richardson. The menu combines sushi from executive chef Chikao Kikuchi, who trained in Tokyo more than 30 years ago in the traditional art and principles of sushi, with French techniques and Western influences. Edoko serves sashimi, nigiri, and robata, along with Western-style entrées such as green-tea chicken and udon noodles with sake-cream and pork belly.

At Stampede 66, chef Stephan Pyles has added his four most signature dishes to the menu: bone-in cowboy rib-eye with onion rings, tamale tart with garlic custard and peekytoe crab, Caesar salad with jalapeño polenta croutons, and the heaven and hell cake. These were on the menu at Pyles' eponymous restaurant, which he closed in April; he opened Flora Street Cafe in early June. "These dishes were created at my previous restaurants, Routh Street Café, Baby Routh, and Star Canyon, and have since become local classics," Pyles says. "As I wanted Flora Street Cafe to showcase all newly created fare, I decided to send these Dallas culinary icons to Stampede, so my guests could still enjoy them."

At Oak, chef Joel Harrington has added new dishes to the menu, including heirloom tomatoes, red snapper crudo, and mushroom cannelloni. According to a release, chef Harrington sources from a farm in Hawaii when he needs fresh hearts of palm for the crudo and uses mushrooms that are domestically and locally foraged, which develop the cannelloni’s inimitable flavor. New entrées include jerk pork chop with molasses and dark rum, and halibut with corn, potatoes, bacon, and Ipswich clams.

Also, Oak is open for lunch with a "2 for $20" power lunch menu featuring dishes such as tacos, spinach salad with blue cheese and pecans, and salmon sandwich.

Design District lounge Quill has a Roaring '20s-inspired dinner menu with items such as Waldorf salad bites with apples, walnuts, raisins, and endive; chicken tacos; barbecue pork buns; crab Louie; and eggplant hummus.

Public School 214 has a new summer menu featuring dishes such as watermelon and heirloom tomato stack; salmon harissa over grilled asparagus and zucchini; and a veggie pizza with zucchini, onion, roasted tomatoes, kale, mozzarella, and provolone.

Steel Restaurant has a new summer lunch menu with crispy rock shrimp; Thai chicken salad, Vietnamese bun; pad Thai; and bento boxes with truffle teriyaki chicken and Korean bulgogi beef, served with a California roll, egg roll, or spring roll, rice, and a mixed green salad.

Savor Gastropub has a new pre-show three-course menu from 5-6:30 pm, where guests can dine in an hour for $60 per person. Starters include lamb meatballs, shrimp and calamari, chopped salad, or heirloom tomato salad. Entrées include salmon, chicken, or short rib. Desserts range from ooey gooey chocolate cake to caramel banana pudding.

For the summer, CBD Provisions is doing "fried chicken Fridays" during lunch on Fridays, from 11 am-3 pm. You get two pieces of fried chicken, cornbread, coleslaw, and french fries for $14. CBD has also updated its brunch and breakfast menus. New at breakfast: smoked salmon tartine on rye bread with scrambled eggs; Carolina rice and grain bowl; and a thick slab of griddled potato bread with cultured butter and jam. Brunch highlights include potato and chorizo quiche, fried chicken sandwich, and pecan buns with cream cheese frosting.

Kent Rathbun Concepts' The Kitchen at 6130 catering spot is opening to the public for lunch every Friday during July, through July 29. It's a $7 lunch with offerings such as pulled pork and brisket, in your choice of sandwich or taco, served with chips and black beans.

Americano is doing a new family-style dinner menu on Sunday nights, from 5-10 pm. You get a choice of mixed greens or Little Gem Caesar; Margherita or pepperoni pizza; lasagna or spaghetti and house-made meatballs (not the store-bought kind); and gelato for dessert. It's $28.

Del Frisco's Grille is celebrating summer with a $6 happy hour menu that includes cocktails, wine, $5 craft beer, and a food menu of old favorites like cheesesteak egg rolls and new items like wagyu corn dogs, pulled-pork nachos, and French onion dip. Hours are weekdays from 4-6:30 pm in the bar and on the patio.

The Kitchen Table at the downtown Sheraton Dallas hotel has a new menu, with lunch and dinner options. Those include crab and scallion hush puppies, kale and mozzarella salad, snapper, St. Louis ribs, Maryland crab cake, pecan pie, tres leches cake, and chocolate-peanut butter bliss.

Lazy Dog Restaurant & Bar in Addison has new summer menu items. Starters include street corn, ceviche, grilled cheese sticks with tomato soup, bison meatloaf, summer squash and bacon pizza, portabello burger, peach crumble, and Key lime cheesecake. There's also a strawberry French toast for brunch.

R Bar & Grill has a new summer menu. There are blackened scallops with jalapeño cheddar grits; spinach and strawberry salad; Italian salad with salami and pepperoni; a BLTC sandwich with cheese on jalapeño cheddar bread; a lobster club sandwich also on jalapeño cheddar bread and with Havarti cheese, what's up with all the cheese already; fried chicken wrap; and a Mediterranean pizza with olives, feta cheese, tomatoes, capers, and mixed cheeses. So much cheese.

Baskin-Robbins has a new "polar pizza," an ice cream treat with ice cream served on a cookie crust that looks like a pizza. It comes in four flavors: Oreo cookies 'n cream, peanut butter 'n chocolate, jamoca almond fudge, and chocolate chip cookie dough. You can also create your own polar pizza by combining a chocolate chip cookie or double fudge brownie crust with your choice of ice cream flavor and toppings.

Starbucks is busy with new stuff. That includes a new iced coconut-milk mocha macchiato, featuring espresso shots poured over chilled coconut milk and combined with white-chocolate mocha sauce. It's also doing an "affogato-style" Frappuccino inspired by the classic Italian dessert. The barista pours a shot of espresso over a finished Starbucks Frappuccino, and the hot espresso mingles with the icy Frappuccino to create creamy pockets of coffee.

Victor Tangos has promoted bartender Andrew Stofko to bar manager. Stofko was a server at Nodding Dog Coffee before joining Victor Tangos.

CBD Provisions has jumped on the fried chicken bandwagon.

Photo courtesy of CBD Provisions

CBD Provisions has jumped on the fried chicken bandwagon.

news-you-can-eat dinner

Downtown News

Vintage downtown Dallas building to become lounge with stellar drinks

Brian Van Flandern

Cocktail by Brian Van Flandern

A vintage building in downtown Dallas is getting a new lease on life: Located at 1519 Main St., the space will become a spectacular new lounge and event space called 1519 Main, and it's from Hospitality Alliance, the company led by restaurant wunderkind Kevin Lillis, who helped create the original AT&T Discovery District downtown.

1519 is situated in the thick of the Central Business District, across the street from the Joule Dallas hotel and in the same stretch as The Eye sculpture and the Forty Five Ten boutique.

The building is unusual because it's a two-story space, which might be a challenge for most potential tenants. But Lillis had the ideal scenario.

"I fell in love with the building," he says. "It had so many original features like the rose-and-cream marble floors from the 1920s. I could immediately see a sophisticated lounge on the first floor. It became viable because I have a friend who was looking for office space, so we're partnering on it, and he's leasing the second floor."

1519 will boast a cosmopolitan, low-key atmosphere, with ultra high-end cocktails from acclaimed mixologist Brian Van Flandern, a food TV regular (Bar Rescue, Barefoot Contessa), author, and consultant who created the renowned cocktail program at the Palm Court at The Plaza Hotel in New York, where he and Lillis both worked.

"Brian had done the Plaza Hotel and has a taste for a concept like this, with sophisticated cocktails and 3-Michelin-star service that will match the beautiful space," Lillis says.

1519 Main St. downtown Dallas Courtesy

Hospitality Alliance beverage director Angela Montesclaros will be a partner, as well.

The project has been in the works for two years, requiring a special use permit, plus the typical delays in dealing with the city (a scenario that is supposedly going to improve!). They also needed to reassure their neighbors, including the St. Jude Chapel next door, that their impact on the area would be low-key.

Dallas County Appraisal District puts the building's date of birth at 1928 — although the building's current co-owner Scott Remphrey, CEO of The Brytar Companies, says he's not sure that's correct.

Brytar acquired the building from an oil and gas company. Prior to that, it was occupied by Bank of America, with offices and a conference room on the second floor with a glass wall overlooking Main Street.

But here's a fun fact: In its earliest pre-Depression-era days, it was home to a Planters Peanut Shop, which eventually moved to Elm Street.

"Some of the brick walls have original painted advertising from the early 1900's that were retained," Remphrey says. "They were advertisements on the exterior walls, which became interior walls of the building when the Planters store was open in the 20's."

That will definitely all stay.

"We're not doing much with the walls or the floors, other than trying to make sure we minimize any damage," Lillis says. "The goal is to retain as much of the original features as possible."

Lillis is currently overseeing the hospitality programs at Victory Park as well as Toyota Music Factory, where they've only just opened a number of restaurant concepts including Jaxon, a modern Texan Restaurant; Pistil, a cocktail lounge; and Shoals Smokehouse, a BBQ restaurant.

1519, which is slated to open in late spring, is on a smaller scale, and that's part of the appeal.

"This is a concept where I can be extremely focused," he says. "At our other Hospitality Alliance projects, we have to be different things to different guests at different times of the week — convention, concert-goers, local residents, office tenants, etc."

"Here we are being only one thing: a high end cocktail den with no compromises," he says. "We aren't trying to please everyone — we are trying to be great at one thing, for a guest looking for that experience."

cocktails downtown nightlife openings