Best Bar Food in Dallas

The 10 best bars in Dallas for food as good (or better) than the drinks

Like every other category of dining out, bar food has stepped up its game. Bars have come a long way from wings and nachos, with bigger menus, better ingredients and a more ambitious attitude.

Part of the credit goes to Dallas pubs like Old Monk and Capitol Pub, whose better-than-bar-food grub helped raise the standard. At the same time, dining has become more casual. Many people are just as likely to start with a drink and move on to nosh, as opposed to hitting a restaurant.

And the line between restaurant and bar has blurred. Is Victor Tangos a bar or restaurant? Depending on your mission, it could be either or both.

Some have food that seems "too good" for a bar. Those are the places we're singling out here: bars with food so good, we almost don't want to call them just bars.

Anvil Pub
Deep Ellum may be swelling with new restaurants, but Anvil Pub gets lots of love for its food, and not just because it does half-price night on Tuesday. This is a bar with serious aspirations, featuring nightly specials such as shrimp tacos, as well as a vegan version of nachos. It dabbles in the humorous trend of extreme Bloody Marys piled with garnishes so preposterously generous — like a club sandwich — that it's enough for a meal.

Common Table
Common Table could rest on its laurels as one of the city's best destinations for beer, but this Uptown gastropub takes its food as seriously as its brews. The menu has shareable dishes such as flatbreads and hummus, but it also features meat-and-potato entrées. Monday night beer dinners are a steal: four courses paired with top beers for $29 a person, showcasing something new every week, such as duck confit sweet potato hash, beef and barley pot pie, or blackened chicken grits.

Libertine
Libertine was on Greenville Avenue before Greenville Avenue became cool, and it has a low-key demeanor that makes it easy to underestimate. The kitchen has seen chefs come and go, but they're always talented and open to trying new things, such as the house favorite portobello fries — thick strips of portobello mushroom in a crunchy batter. Every Sunday and Monday night there's a "roast pairing" featuring short ribs and mashed potatoes paired with award-winning Sir William's Brown Ale or Darkhorse Cabernet Sauvignon.

Lounge 31
With its plastic sheeting wall and slapdash atmosphere, there's something challenging about Lounge 31, the impromptu bar upstairs from Bistro 31 in Highland Park Village. That's part of its appeal; it's a bit like a treehouse in this tony center. Well, that and the food, which is primarily Japanese and seafood. Its impeccable sushi brings to mind the now-closed Lombardi Mare, owner Alberto Lombardi's seafood restaurant back in the day.

Nickel and Rye
Owned by the same folks who own Woodfire Kirby's on Greenville and Kirby's Steakhouse in Southlake, Nickel and Rye could be mistaken for any other Uptown bar, with its patio spilling over McKinney Avenue. But the food is a pleasant surprise, from flatbreads and nicely charred quesadillas to irresistible items such as chicken and waffles or coconut-crusted shrimp. The drinks are good too.

So & So's
Taking over the storied Primo's spot, all So & So's really had to do was stock the bar and put out some chips and salsa. But instead owners Brandon Hays and Phil Schanbaum took a serious approach to the food, hiring chefs with experience and throwing out high-end surprises like pork shank with risotto; red snapper with English peas; or veggie pizza with artichoke, arugula and goat cheese. For a whimsical twist on a bar staple, there's Buffalo chicken skins with hot sauce, celery and blue cheese.

Standard Pour
This Uptown haunt may be known for the mixology of Brian McCullough, but it does not shirk in the eats. New chef Cody Sharp, who previously worked at highly rated restaurants such as Casa Rubio and Stephan Pyles, has injected gourmet polish with dishes such as pork shank with cherry sauce, Wagyu steak, charcuterie, artful salads and sandwiches with house-made fries.

Ten Bells Tavern
Bishop Arts has sit-down restaurants, from Lucia to Stock & Barrel to Hattie's. Ten Bells is for when you want to stay in your flip-flops and settle in to a picnic table outside. Don't look for healthy here; it's more about burgers with BBQ sauce, fish and chips, house-made wings, and a crumb-topped mac and cheese. The odd signature is the Butty sandwich: two slices of grilled brioche enclosing French fries, Swiss, mozzarella and white cheddar cheese, with a side of curry dipping sauce.

Trinity Hall
One of the success stories at Mockingbird Station, Trinity Hall welcomes everyone from rugby fans to pub lovers to beer nuts. Its list of brews is broad, but it offers above-average food too — from pub classics like mussels to homey entrées such as pot roast with mashes potatoes. A new category includes a top-notch selection of vegan dishes such as Buffalo "chick'n" and chips with vegan queso.

Whistling Pig
As a spin-off of Lakewood bar Cock and Bull, it's no surprise that the Whistling Pig has good food. Owners Shawn Tang and Robert Cornwell have always been committed to good food, and they have a serious chef in Asher Stevens, who has become known for his deli-style sandwiches such as pastrami, Cuban and Reuben. At dinner, blue-plate specials such as jerk chicken or meatloaf with mashed potatoes quickly sell out.

Ten Bells Tavern

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Ten Bells Tavern

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Bread News

Plano bakery and pizzeria Bread Street Boys has some amazing bread

Bread Street Boys

German rye-wheat bread at Bread Street Boys

There's a hot loaf in town for Dallas bread fanatics thanks to Bread Street Boys, a bakery on the east side of Plano at 2710 S. Rigsbee Dr. #A, that's doing amazing breads, pizzas, and sandwiches.

Bread Street is a mom & pop from husband-and-wife Yury and Tatiana Stark, who are bringing an old-world, authentic style of sourdough bread that harkens to what they grew up with in Eastern Europe.

Their menu includes sourdough bread, Italian white, German rye-wheat, ciabatta, and focaccia, along with sourdough pizzas, which they sell from their east Plano bakery.

German rye
Their signature and best-seller is the German rye-wheat, an epic bread with a crust that's crisp but not too thick, and a crumb that's moist and chewy — a perfect contrast of textures. The bread has enough artisanal style to please bread snobs but not so heavy that it will scare off those intimated by a thick crust.

Rye bread generally has a darker color and dense texture, but Bread Boys mixes in wheat flour to create a softer texture yet still retaining rye's distinctive malty flavor.

"Our rye bread is especially popular among Eastern Europeans who grew up with it and miss it from their childhood," Tatiana says. "That's a big part of our story — we both moved here from Belarus where good natural bread is a part of almost every meal, and we couldn't find anything like that here. Yury and I would spend time with our grandparents during summer break, helping make bread from scratch, and we missed that quality and flavor."

How they met
The couple has a sweet story. They knew each other when they were young, but Tatiana's family moved to the U.S. in 2000 when she was 14. They kept in touch over the years and realized they were meant for each other.

"He moved here eight years ago, and we got married and had two kids," she says.

Yury has an entrepreneurial streak so they founded the bakery in 2022, with Tatiana leaving her corporate job to form the quintessential mom & pop.

They built the bakery in a former warehouse from scratch — it took them nearly a year — and then went door-to-door offering samples of their bread. It can now be found at gourmet grocery stores such as Jimmy's Food Store, European Delicatessen Too in Plano, Kuby's Sausage House in Snider Plaza, and Georgia's Farmers Market in Plano. (A full list of where to buy their bread is here.)

Bread Street Boys pizzaBread Street Boys

Pizza
The pizzas were a natural offshoot. They make their crust with sourdough, which adds a complexity and toasty quality, elevating it from your everyday pie, in varieties such as pepperoni, margherita, BBQ chicken, veggie, and capricciosa topped with ham, artichokes, tomatoes, and mushrooms. Prices range from $17 to $20.

"Like our breads, our pizza crust dough incorporates a sourdough starter," Tatiana says. "There's a common misconception that sourdough means it's sour, but it's really about natural fermentation, which not only creates a better flavor, it also makes it more digestible and nutritious."

The fact that sourdough is naturally leavened — with no preservatives or dough conditioners, nothing artificial — is important to them, and they also use unenriched flour.

"I care a lot about nutrition, especially for children, and we try to eat as healthy as possible," Tatiana says. "One of our dreams is to bring our bread to local schools."

The pizza can be ordered online, and Bread Street is partnered with delivery services, but Tatiana says that many customers like to drop in.

"A lot of our customers stop by and pick it up — it's kind of a glamorous hole in the wall — I guess they find it charming," she says.

Sandwiches
Their latest adventure is a line of sandwiches made on their house bread, which they sell at the Dallas Farmers Market.

"We're at the Dallas Farmers Market every weekend when the shed is open," Tatiana says. "We sell our bread there, and it's the only place where we've been selling the sandwiches. We do some unusual combinations like the Breadwinner, a sweet-and-savory sandwich with turkey, lettuce, bacon, a spread with grated cheese and pecans, and peach preserves which adds an interesting kick. People love them, so we're going to start selling them at our bakery."

The name
The name "Bread Street Boys" has a certain attitude but also weaves in a few elements, some personal.

"'Bread Street' nods to old European streets where bakeries were the heartbeat of the neighborhood — places where bread was made daily, by hand, with skill passed down through people," Tatiana says. "'Boys' reflects our energy behind the bakery: a fun, tight-knit, and hardworking crew of bakers."

Also, when they were teenagers, the Backstreet Boys were popular.

"We used to know those songs by heart, but without knowing a thing about what the words said," she says. "We liked the idea of giving the name a little pop-culture wink — kind of where old-world bread meets modern spirit."

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