News You Can Eat

New neighborhood restaurants debut in Dallas and more dining dish

A brisket "monsieur" with a glass of red wine.

Photo courtesy of Omni

It's a good week for Dallas dining, with exciting new restaurants opening, new dishes, and new chefs. There's also a local guy showing up on TV.

Here's what's happening in Dallas restaurant news:

Bánh Mì Station, a fast-casual restaurant specializing in classic Vietnamese sandwiches, is open for lunch and dinner at Sylvan | Thirty, on the south side of the development near AT&T and Vernacular. Sandwich options include five-spice pork belly, lemongrass chicken, duck confit, pickled carrots, daikon, cucumber, and garlic aioli. Sides include fries, kale slaw, and red curry mac and cheese, along with vegan dishes and soft-serve ice cream. Soft-serve is a trend.

The Henry, the so-called greatest neighborhood restaurant from Sam Fox Restaurants (Flower Child, North Italia), is now open at the Union Dallas. It includes a coffee bar, two full-service bars, and private dining room. The menu has Dallas specials with dishes such as short rib potstickers, fried chicken sandwich, and portobello tacos. It's open for breakfast, lunch, dinner, weekend brunch, as well as weekday happy hour and late nights.

Imoto in Victory Park is now open for lunch. The menu includes spring rolls, Korean fried chicken, yellowtail and snow crab rolls, and a variety of bento boxes with seared Scottish salmon, shrimp tempura, and pork belly.

Omni Dallas Hotel has a new line of mini versions of favorite comfort foods, including shrimp and grits, grilled cheese brisket, and honey cheesecake. Omni Dallas executive chef Greg Wallace's contribution is the Texas brisket monsieur: brie and brisket sandwiched between Texas toast with pickles and chipotle ketchup. Other options include vegetarian paella, cured salmon on a mustard dill scone, and pâte à choux with salted bourbon, banana cream and white chocolate whipped ganache. Guests can choose a selection of three or five minis for a set price.

Knife restaurant at both The Highland Dallas and The Shops at Willow Bend locations have a new seasonal dessert: The Hazelnut and Blood Orange is created by pastry chef Eric Cobb and has hazelnut mousse, blood orange sorbet, blood orange crémeux, praline crumb, candied hazelnuts and hazelnut ganache. It's $12.

Tacodeli, the Austin-born taqueria chain, is featuring short rib from 44 Farms for its February specials. At breakfast, it's a taco with scrambled eggs, short ribs, and poblano-onion rajas, 7–11 am weekdays and 8 am–3 pm weekends. At lunch, it's short rib tacos with shredded short ribs braised in guajillo-pasilla adobo and garnished with jalapeño escabeche, 11 am–3 pm every day.

Rotolo’s Craft and Crust pizzeria has a new spring menu with lighter choices, available through March 31. Hummus with kalamata olives and red peppers comes with feta cheese-crumbled flatbread. Pesto Manifesto is spaghetti, bruschetta, chicken, pesto, feta cheese, and garlic Parmesan bites. Hummus pizza has tomatoes, chicken, feta cheese, and pesto on a cauliflower crust. There are also mini bite-size King cakes.

McDonald’s is offering donut sticks sprinkled with cinnamon sugar for a crunchy outside and soft, doughy inside, available during breakfast hours only, by the half-dozen or dozen, starting February 20 for a limited time.

Shake Shack has rolled out Chick'n Bites — fried breaded bites of chicken breast, available in a 6- piece or 10-piece combo with BBQ sauce or honey mustard for $4-$6, for a limited time, how long that is, they do not say.

Gas Monkey Bar Live owner Richard Rawlings will appear in an upcoming episode of the new Food Network series Buddy vs. Duff, a "cake-off" competition show starring bakers Buddy Valastro (Cake Boss) and Duff Goldman (Ace of Cakes). Rawlings will appear in the March 10 premiere when Valastro and Goldman create car-inspired birthday cakes for the "celebrity gearhead."

Ocean Prime Dallas has appointed Brandon Moore as executive chef. Moore has been with Ocean Prime Dallas for seven years and brings over 22 years of experience to the team. Prior to his promotion, he served as sous chef under former Ocean Prime Dallas Executive Chef, Sonny Pache for four years. Pache moved to Columbus in late 2018 to develop a new CMR concept; who knew. Moore hails from Troy, Michigan and has a degree in Culinary Arts from the Culinary Studies Institute in Farmington Hills.

Four Seasons Resort and Club Dallas at Las Colinas has appointed Ryan Barnett as the new chef at LAW, the resort's signature restaurant. Barnett has worked in some of Dallas' most notable kitchens including Bistro 31, Neighborhood Services, Stephan Pyles, San Salvaje, Flora Street Café, and most recently Lark on the Park. He received a college diploma from the University of Mississippi, and a culinary degree from Colorado Mountain College.

Billy Can Can, the Victory Park restaurant, has hired Keith Cedotal as its new pastry chef. His new menu includes Texas sheet cake, apple crisp, churros, sticky toffee cake, and a frozen chocolate-peanut butter mousse. In addition to Joule restaurants Mirador, CBD Provisions, Americano, Sassetta and Wheelhouse, Cedotal has worked at Uchi, Stephan Pyles, Stampede 66, Craft Dallas, Park, and Hotel Zaza's Dragonfly. Most importantly, he won Best Pastry Chef at CultureMap Dallas' 2018 Tastemaker Awards.

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Spring Arrival

West Dallas gets new Spanish-Peruvian restaurant with big-name chef

Photo courtesy of Ulloa's

Paella will be on the menu.

A new restaurant with a high-profile culinary director will bring Spanish and Peruvian flavors to West Dallas: Called Ulloa’s, it is coming to 727 Fort Worth Ave., with a projected opening in March 2027.

The concept is from philanthropists Susan and Woodrow Gandy, who were previously investors in the historic Belmont Hotel just around the corner. They've teamed up with Dallas celebrity chef Kent Rathbun as culinary director, along with Christopher Tunnell as general manager to lead the front of the house.

Rathbun is a name Dallas diners know well, with a resume that includes The Mansion on Turtle Creek, the Landmark Restaurant at the historic Melrose Hotel, Seventeen Seventeen at the Dallas Museum of Art, Abacus, Jasper's, Rathbun’s Blue Plate Kitchen, and more. He's won numerous awards and made multiple appearances on Food Network. He was most recently behind the launch of On The Rocks, an Italian bistro in Burleson.

Chef Kent Rathbun will be the culinary director of Ulloa's. Photo courtesy of Kent Rathbun

Tunnell’s background spans both culinary direction and front-of-house operations. He worked at Los Angeles hot spots Ketchup, Geisha House, and Les Deux, as well as the Mandalay Bay and The Mirage in Las Vegas, before moving to Dallas to open The Mexican, the upscale restaurant in the Design District.

“I am truly excited to partner with Chef Kent Rathbun, whose reputation is amazing — not only in the DFW Metroplex, but in the culinary world,” Tunnell says. “He has been with this project since the beginning, helping develop it; this will be a very chef-driven, culinary-forward restaurant.”

The team's vision for Ulloa’s is both culinary and urban, with hopes of anchoring the corridor and attracting other businesses to Fort Worth Avenue — a stretch connecting downtown Dallas with Oak Cliff that remains somewhat underdeveloped despite its panoramic skyline views.

The restaurant is named for Spanish explorer, astronomer, and scientist Antonio de Ulloa, who spent extensive time in the Mexican peninsula before becoming Louisiana’s first governor. During his travels, Ulloa documented a fogbow — a circular rainbow formed when sunlight meets mist that causes silhouettes standing between the sun and fog to appear ringed in light, a phenomenon known today as “Ulloa’s Rings.”

That vibrant phenomenon inspired both the restaurant's identity and logo. The concept promises "bold, worldly flavors in a welcoming neighborhood setting inspired by exploration and discovery,” the owners say.

Ulloa's Rendering of Ulloa's.Rendering courtesy of Ulloa's

While the menu remains in development, Tunnell describes the culinary direction as “Spanish soul with a Peruvian heart.” The kitchen will merge the coastal flavors of both traditions — ranging from paellas and ceviches to crafted cocktails and signature adaptations by Rathbun.

The 200-seat, two-story space will feature a downstairs dining room, a large bar, and an outdoor patio. Upstairs, plans call for a secondary bar, a private dining room, a patio, and an expansive balcony patio, offering views of the city's skyline and of the Margaret Hunt Hill and Margaret McDermott bridges.

While the upstairs space will be available for private events, the owners intend for it to operate primarily as an organic extension of the main restaurant. The buildout will include a guest elevator along with ample parking, including both self-parking and valet options.

The team says the restaurant will have have an aesthetic that's “warm, theatrical, generous, elegant but alive, with the energy of a great Spanish tapas bar and the soul of Peruvian hospitality.”

Ulloa’s plans to launch with dinner service first, followed by lunch and weekend brunch.

restaurants bars peruvian flavors west dallas oak cliff kent rathbun