Where to Eat

Where to eat in Dallas right now: 12 places to get fantastic desserts

It's a flan. No, it's a cake. No, it's a flan AND a cake.

Photo by bella flan

For our February edition of Where to Eat — our monthly roundup of the best eats in Dallas — we're going with another cliche.

It goes like this: In January, you eat healthy. In February, you indulge in desserts.

The backdrop for this indulgence is Valentine's Day. (We have a list of who's offering Valentine's Day meals around town.) The places on this list are strictly dessert, but run a wide gamut including bakeries, cafes, a pie shop, even a cottage baker doing vegan Filipino treats. If you can't find something you like on this list, then maybe you don't like dessert.

For Where to Eat for February, here's a dozen places to get sweets:

Bella Flan. Dessert shop-within-a-shop inside the Corner Food Mart at 4460 W Walnut St. in Garland specializes in flan cakes, the luscious two-layer dessert with a layer of cake on the bottom and flan on top. The concept was founded by Siv Lopez, a longtime baker, who does choco-flan, the best known flan cake which combines flan with a base of moist, devil's food chocolate cake. For Valentine's Day, she has a 10-inch cake with flan on top and Red Velvet cake on the bottom, for $60, available by special order. 214-566-3656.

Bisous Bisous Patisserie. West Village shop from award-winning pastry chef-owner Andrea Meyer is known for macarons and French pastries including croissants, tarts, cruffins, scones, eclairs, and cookies. She's always rolling out special-edition items, and for February that means passion fruit tarts, white chocolate-strawberry cream puffs, heart-shaped brownies, and heart-shaped red velvet drip cakes. Order online or call 214-613-3570.

Cremcrittos Gelato & Pastry. Bakery and gelateria is from brothers Mike Yim and Young Yim who opened in late 2020 in McKinney where they're putting out croissants, cronuts, and gelato, made from scratch. Their menu includes cinnamon rolls, apple fritters, Danish, trendy cronuts, and croissants. On a typical day, they offer about 16 pastries and 8 flavors of gelato. Their current bestseller is an almond cream cronut with almond butter cream and almond nougatine on top.

Haute Sweets Patisserie. Lake Highlands shop suffered a bruising in November when it was hit by a car, but Tida Pichakron and her team are back in business, making macarons, passion fruit tarts, as well as a special menu of seasonal treats including Chocolate Heart Bon Bons (Salted Caramel, Raspberry Rose, Coffee Dulce de Leches), Chocolate Raspberry Haute Chocolate Bomb, and Heart Chocolate Pod (filed with an assortment of chocolate truffles and candies).

Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams
Columbus, Ohio-based chain, whose pints are sold at Whole Foods Market and Central Market stores, just opened a new location in Deep Ellum, at 2649 Main St. They offer about two dozen flavors, with incredible-sounding offerings such as Milkiest Chocolate, Salty Caramel, Wildberry Lavender, Brown Butter Almond Brittle, Goat Cheese and Roasted Cherries. The store also sells pints to go in a wider variety than the selection sold in grocery stores, along with T-shirts.

La Casita Bakeshop. High-quality mom-and-pop bakery from Maricsa Trejo and Alex Henderson was already supplying coffee shops all over town with cruffins and croissants before opening a location in Richardson, from which you can order ahead of time and pickup on Saturdays. They do all kinds of creative items, such as a citrus tart made with grapefruit and kumquat cream filling, and their chocolate-malt sandwich cookie, a large flat treat filled with chocolate ganache and maraschino cherry jelly.

Merienda Monster. Merienda is a cottage bakery with vegan and Filipino-inspired desserts, many featuring ube, aka sweet purple yam. There are strawberry pop tarts, ube-filled pop tarts, ube crinkle cookies (soft on the inside, crisp on the outside), malasadas (Portuguese yeast doughnuts), ube crumble cake doughnuts, and ube loaf cakes with ube jam and pink buttercream. You need to order 48 hours in advance; with a $25 minimum purchase, they'll deliver with 35 miles of the 75061 zip code in Irving.

Piefalootin'. Dedicated pie shop in Garland is a place where people can buy whole pies or sit down and have a slice with coffee. Owner Tracy Dowd does classics like coconut cream pie, Key lime, and Texas pecan, as well as fruit pies, some in seasonal flavors such as blackberry. Her twist on cheesecake pie has a layer of fruit fillin and a cheesecake-like topping. She varies the flavors of pies by the slice in the shop, but you can order any whole pie 48 hours in advance. 469-573-8756 or email tracy@piefalootin.com.

Pietro's Bakery & Café. Family-owned bakery and cafe in Frisco features Italian desserts including Italian cream cake, tiramisu, and limoncello mousse cake. One cool item from founder Tina Delia is the Tri-Colored Cake, aka "Tricolore" because of the resemblance to the Italian flag with white, red, and, green layers. It's an almond-flavored white cake with a soft, fluffy texture, frosted with chocolate buttercream. Visit their shop or else order online.

Reverie Bakeshop. Richardson bakery is exactly like a bakery in every way except for one distinction: Everything's vegan. No dairy, no eggs. Their selection includes beautifully decorated cakes, doughnuts, muffins, cinnamon rolls, croissants, Danish, cupcakes, cake balls, brownies, cobbler, pop tarts, and cookies. They have a lot of fun with special seasonal items such as football-shaped cake balls for Super Bowl, which sell out quickly. Order online or pickup at the shop.

San Martin Bakery & Restaurant. Uptown Dallas is home to this amazing bakery-cafe concept from Guatemala. Combining bakery, pastry shop, and restaurant, they're not like anything else around. They're always at the ready, for breakfast, brunch, lunch, and dinner, as well as an entire bakery. Their selection includes gorgeous cakes, pastries, and baked goods you don't see elsewhere, such as their apple-filled croissant, like an apple pie in a croissant form.

Village Baking Co. Local baker just opened a second location in the Knox District at 4539 Travis St. where they're selling bread and patisserie including scones, palmiers, financiers, chocolate truffle cakes, fruit tarts, and coconut macaroons.They were among the first in Dallas to offer trendy items like the canele, the small, moist cylindrical French pastry; and the kouign amann, the rich croissant-based Breton treat named for cake (kouign) and butter (amann).

where-to-eat desserts

Blending cultures

Dallas Matcha Club brings community together over trendy green tea

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

Matcha

Members of a unique Dallas social club are bonding over the world's trendiest drink: matcha. The Dallas Matcha Club (DMC) aims to foster a community through a shared love of matcha, while supporting local businesses and making new friends.

Matcha is rapidly growing in popularity worldwide, with the global market projected to reach $6.35 billion by 2029. The tea has its origins in China, but it was developed and refined in Japan; tea leaves are ground into the green powder that's used for matcha lattes and smoothies, whose appeal has skyrocketed in recent years — especially among Gen-Z.

DMC Founder Aaliyah Iwamoto created the social club in October 2024 after moving to Texas from Hawaii.

“Since I'd just moved, I wanted to get to explore the city,” Iwamoto says. “I figured trying new cafes was the perfect way to do it ... I was hoping to meet new people."

Iwamoto, who is of Japanese heritage, says matcha had been a part of her life long before it became buzzy. Whenever she visits Japan, she brings back matcha tins from Nishio — and on a previous trip, even toured a matcha farm.

“When I first started [DMC], I didn't know that [matcha] was going to get as big as it did and have such a global impact,” Iwamoto says.

Now she is parlaying her love of matcha into a social experience with dozens of other matcha enthusiasts in North Texas.

On "matcha meetups," club members visit local coffee shops and matcha hot spots together, from downtown Dallas to Fort Worth to McKinney.

The group also hosts events at which members can gain new skills and hobbies. Matcha-specific activities have included classes where they've made chawans, or “matcha bowls,” as well as matcha-whisking workshops. They've also hosted more general-interest events such as paint and sips, Pilates classes, bracelet making, picnics, yoga sessions, and more.

Their most recent event was a Matcha Winter Market with La Maison Bleue Cafe, which included a Christmas toy drive for Children’s Health Plano.

The Dallas Matcha Club on one of their meetups.Photo courtesy of Dallas Matcha Club

While some events have drawn as many as 150 attendees, most see about 30 to 50 people. Members are a diverse group of primarily 20- and 30-somethings at various stages of life — from parents who come with their kids to college students.

“I feel like there's a good mix of people from all different places, too, not just Texas," Iwamoto says.

What makes matcha such a community connector is its ties to a culture, she says.

“'It’s not just a drink. There's a whole process that goes into making the matcha, and a whole process into making your latte at home,” Iwatmoto says. “People are learning about the different tools that you use to make matcha, which are all Japanese ... people are learning through enjoying matcha."

The club’s Instagram page, which has nearly 5,500 followers, proclaims, "Whether you’re an avid matcha lover or matcha newbie, the Dallas Matcha Club is the community for you!"

Iwamoto underscores that DMC is a welcoming group for anyone.

“Most of the people that attend like matcha, but there are some people who are new to it," she says. "There's also some people who just tag along with their friends and they're more of a coffee person. Anyone's welcome."

Anyone interested in joining the Dallas Matcha Club can follow their Instagram @dallasmatcha and fill out the membership form, which is linked in their Instagram bio. There is no fee to become a member of the DMC.

club matcha tea coffee