Opening News

5 fun new restaurants that have opened in Dallas since the New Year

Bucatini fruiti de mar from Hawthorn, with clams, mussels, shrimp, scallop, and swordfish in pomodoro sauce.

Photo courtesy of Hawthorn

The year 2021 is moving along at a hectic pace with January practically behind us and more new Dallas restaurants openings than we can count. There's a fine-dining spot in downtown Dallas, new BBQ in Plano, new Asian in Addison, and a bakery opening in Dallas' Knox District.

These restaurants are no fluke; close to 100 restaurants that we already know about are set to open this spring, which you can track on this list.

Here's 5 new restaurants that have opened around Dallas since January 1:

Burnt BBQ & Tacos
New Plano restaurant combines BBQ and tacos, with a not-so-ordinary menu that includes Prime quality smoked brisket crusted in coffee grounds; baby-back ribs with BBQ citrus marinade; and sausage with roasted poblano. You can also get the meats rolled into a taco, topped with sauces such as avocado crema and ancho mole. One unique offering: their Navajo taco, served on the trendy puffy Navajo bread, as much a flatbread as it is a taco. Located at 2929 Custer Rd. #302D, the restaurant seats 25, but they anticipate being primarily to-go, especially while COVID-19 lingers.

Hawthorn
New restaurant at the AT&T Discovery District in downtown Dallas features seafood, steaks, and sushi, both classic and modern. Dishes include rotisserie chicken, huli huli (a sweet and savory teriyaki sauce popular in Hawaii) pheasant, rosemary grilled jumbo shrimp, miso black cod, ancho coco Colorado rack of lamb, and a clever flight of filets with Angus, Prime, and Wayu. Creative cocktails include an organic skinny hawthorn berry margarita and a "mayhew" Singapore sling, plus juices and a big wine list. Located in the Whitacre Tower building at 211 S. Akard St., Hawthorn is from the Aphelia Restaurant Group (Oak, Pakpao Thai, El Bolero).

Sabaidee
Sweet family-run Asian restaurant chain featuring Lao & Thai cuisine specializes in home-style cooking, with lovingly prepared delicacies such as sticky rice, short riblets, Lao spicy sausage, wings, and green papaya salad. Their Pad See Ew with wide, flat rice noodles in a sweet sauce studded with carrots, broccoli, and egg, is particularly satisfying. Their newest location serves Addison, at 5365 Spring Valley Rd. at Montfort Drive, north of Galleria Dallas. It's a little smaller than their other three locations on Lemmon Avenue, Rowlett, and Prosper, and offers a brisk takeout business.

The Trove
Newly opened spot in Oak Cliff is a truly unique concept combining gemstone-themed cocktails with jewelry in a lounge experience. Their subhead is "lounge - jewelry - tapas." The drinks are designed to be visually appealing, like jewels. For food, they have cheese boards and exotic bites such as "black esquite," made with yellow corn & huitlacoche. The jewelry is from their sibling, Ely Artisans Jewelry, featuring beautiful colored gemstones set in distinctive, ornate rings, necklaces, and earrings.

Village Baking
One of Dallas' most beloved artisan bakeries has opened a new location in the Knox District, at 4539 Travis St., at the intersection of Knox, in the small building next to the former 7-Eleven that was once a florist and most recently a Parachute store. This will maybe help their storefront on Lower Greenville, which reliably draws lines in the mornings for its croissants and pastries, as well as a wholesale outlet located in the Design District.

openings

Chocolate News

Richardson dessert shop Chocolate Drip lays out eye-catching treats

Chocolate Drip

Chocolate bear with pistachio sauce at Chocolate Drip

A dessert shop in Richardson has become the toast of the sweets world: Called Chocolate Drip, it opened in August at 1057 S. Sherman St., in a center east of US-75 near Spring Valley Road, where it's rolling out some eye-catching chocolate treats.

Chocolate Drip is a passion project from Mohammad Quzmar, a Palestinian-born owner who moved to Dallas four years ago and taught himself to cook through tinkering. That experimentation has translated into a constantly evolving menu, with new creations appearing whenever inspiration strikes — earning him a growing reputation as something of a modern-day Willy Wonka.

"Chocolate is my passion. I just love being in the kitchen and creating,” he says.

The cafe's offerings are extensive, from sweet breakfast staples like pancakes and waffles to off-menu items teased on the café’s Instagram, such as the Dubai Drip platter — an interactive fondue plate with fruit, brownies, waffles, marshmallows, to be dipped into melted chocolate and pistachio cream.

Many of his items have the kind of eye-catching twists and table-side presentations that draw attention on Instagram, such as the cruffle (a waffle made from a croissant) topped with spaghetti-like strands of gelato, which a server extrudes through a potato ricer right before your eyes.

Other signatures include a teddy bear made of chocolate mousse and kanafa, finished with pistachio sauce for $13.30, and crepes filled with a brownie, with pistachio and chocolate sauce for $15.

Prices are not cheap but these are ultra-decadent items with generous portions, often meant for sharing.

The drink list is ambitious, spanning coffee, matcha, smoothies, milkshakes, and nonalcoholic mocktails. It's obvious Quzmar is having fun, rolling out his versions of viral items like the famous s'mores hot chocolate pioneered by New York dessert shop Glace, which features a cap made of marshmallow meringue that’s torched.

There are also a few savory offerings like egg-and-cheese crepes, a salmon croissant, and a turkey waffle. Those in the know also come to order Middle Eastern treats like salab, a creamy milk drink topped with cinnamon; and Om Ali, a sugary pudding with nuts, dried fruit, and coconut.

Named after the Gen Z slang for “cool” or “stylish,” Drip is meant to be a hangout spot more than a quick dessert stop, Quzmar says — a place to linger over brunch, then return late night to a place that feels buzzy and fun sans alcohol.

“Everyone who works here is either family or treated like family and everything is homemade with love," he says.

desserts openings