Tastemaker Awards

9 top new pizza restaurants in Dallas vie for best pie in town

Today's theme: pizza.

Photo by Dillan Juul

CultureMap Dallas brings back its Tastemaker Awards, an annual celebration shining a light on the city's top culinary talent. It begins with a 10-part editorial series, profiling all of those nominated for an award in categories such as Neighborhood Restaurant of the Year, Bar of the Year, and Rising Star Chef. Check out our page with all the nominees, voted on by a panel of judges consisting of former CultureMap Tastemaker Award winners and local F&B experts.

It'll culminate in a party on May 12 at Fashion Industry Gallery, emceed by comedian CJ Starr, where attendees get to dine on bites from nominated restaurants and find out who the winners are in all the categories. (Tickets are on sale here.)

This entry is our Wild Card, a category that changes every year depending on what's hot. In 2022, that's pizza. It was a year that saw more than a dozen new pizza concepts open, tossing out all varieties and bringing an unprecedented array of styles and options that show how magnificently Dallas' pizza scene has evolved in the last few years.

Here are our nominees for 2022 Wild Card – Best new Pizza:

400 Gradi
Style: Neapolitan
Downtown Italian restaurant from Australian chef Johnny Di Francesco uses upscale authentic ingredients such as San Marzano tomatoes in more than a dozen varieties such as the Supreme with pumpkin, arugula, pine nuts, and goat cheese. They ferment their dough and pastas for 48 hours in a temperature-controlled room. Entrees include branzino, chicken breast with pepperonata and nduja sauce, and mussels in a garlic-chili jus with chargrilled bread. Zero Gradi, a companion gelato shop, recently opened next door and another 400 Gradi will open in McKinney in 2023.

Mission Pizza
Style: Massachusetts bar pizza
Pizza concept in Denton is available as a pop-up on weekends at Herf's Denton County Taphouse, and worth spotlighting because of its one-of-a-kind angle: It does "South Shore bar pizza," a crispy, cheesy style that originated in the bars of the South Shore of Massachusetts where founder Steve North grew up. It's a rich pie with a crisp, buttery, almost biscuity crust; crushed tomato sauce; and cheddar cheese, cooked in a pan like Chicago-style or Detroit-style, with sauce and cheese spread to the edge, so there's no exposed crust, and with crisp Detroit-style burnt edges.

Mondo Pizza
Style: Global
Fresh, worldly take on pizza on Lemmon Avenue is from veteran Dallas restaurateur Yaser Khalaf (Baboush, Souk Moroccan Bistro), no stranger to pizza; he previously owned LA Gourmet Pizza on McKinney Avenue. This is a small delivery and pickup only place, with pizza crafted through his international perspective. Chicken Shawarma has sumac & herb grilled chicken, goat cheese, and a saffron-garlic cream. The Mt. Gyro has shaved lamb and beef gyro meat, feta cheese, tzatziki crema, capers, arugula, and kalamata olives.

KillA Pie
Style: Detroit
Prosper restaurant specializes in Detroit-style square-shaped pies with thick-yet-airy crusts and crisped cheesy edges. Owners David Kazarian, Jay Clark, Shane Lambert, and Robert Wechsler worked with chef and cookbook author Peter Reinhart, tasting dozens of variations to refine their recipe. They make their dough from organic flour and put it through a 24- to 48-hour fermentation process before it gets rolled out and topped with tomato sauce, Wisconsin brick cheese, and toppings. There are also five creative salads and starters such as red pepper hummus.

NEONY Pizza Works
Style: Artisan New York
Indie pizzeria is a new concept opening in Oak Cliff at 829 W. Davis St. from Alex Ham, a commercial photographer who previously owned a pizza place in Korea, and his wife Eun Young. Ham calls it "nothing fancy but good-quality pizza" — an artisanal rendition of NY-style pizza but with a lighter dough that takes 4 to 5 minutes, which means you'll get it a little faster than you would a traditional NY-style pie. The toppings are pretty standard — pepperoni, margherita, veggie — but the notable element here is the crust, which is aged 72 hours and is super-airy and crisp.

Pizza Gianna
Style: Dallas Thin Crust
Lovers Lane pizzeria is from the same Nuccio family who founded Pizza by Marco/My Family's Pizza, a thin-crust neighborhood favorite beloved to old-school Dallasites. The pizza features their legendary sauce and trusted recipes, but with a more up-to-date business model including allowing for ordering and payment online. You can't beat pizzas such as the Augustus with EVOO, garlic, spinach, sun dried tomato, provolone, and feta, but their sub sandwiches including meatball and baked Italian with pepperoni, salami, pepperoncinis, Roma tomatoes, provolone, and parmesan are also divine.

Pegasus Pizza
Style: Neapolitan
Pizzeria is part of the Restaurants on Lamar collection at Omni Dallas Hotel, named for the iconic Pegasus on the hotel's front lawn. Their pizza is Neapolitan-style baked at high temperatures and topped with organic tomatoes and "craft" meats. Pizzas are 12-inch, perfect for the market, and include a Margherita, a Carne, BBQ Brisket, veggie with artichokes, olives, red peppers, mushrooms, spinach, and truffle oil, Buffalo Chicken, and Herb Chicken with chicken and white sauce. The bar is wine-centric, with wine on tap, 10+ wines by the glass, and seasonally inspired sangrias.

Motor City Pizza
Style: Detroit
Pizza is the foundation of this carry-out pop-up based in Lewisville with varieties such as a "Greektown" with black & green olives, red onion, spinach, tomato, and feta cheese, topped with Greek dressing. Owner Greg Tierney, a Michigan native who grew up eating Detroit-style pizza, is restlessly creative, offering seasonal specials with unexpected toppings such as mushroom gravy. In addition to the thick Detroit-style crust, he also makes some with a traditional-style crust, for those that are not deep dish fans.

PT Neighborhood Pizza
Style: Artisan thin crust
Offshoot of Dallas pizzeria chain Pie Tap uses a modern fast-casual service model where you bypass the usual counter-service and use your phone to order and pay. The menu bears a passing resemblance to Pie Tap, with a handful of pizzas plus sandwiches, sliders, beer, wine, and margaritas. They also have an option where you can get a slice and side, with a special oven that makes superior slices. One thing the two concepts do share is Pie Tap's pizza dough, which creates the light, crisp crust for which they're known.

pizza tastemakers bests awards

Eco Warrior News

Dallas restaurants doing amazing little things for the environment

Southwest Airlines

Cute bamboo cup from Southwest Airlines

One unfortunate legacy left by the pandemic has been a huge increase in the use of plastics — setting back progress that was being made pre-pandemic.

Plastics are bad. They harm everything they touch: the environment, health, food security, and economies. But they're convenient, subsidized, and in some cases necessary.

Before the pandemic, a growing awareness had started to snowball regarding the negative impact of plastics, particularly plastic straws and single-use plastic containers — and it was significant enough to make the plastics industry very nervous.

"In the two years leading up to the pandemic, the public backlash against plastic was a major concern for industry leaders," says a story about plastics and the pandemic in The Guardian. "As a corporate executive remarked during an industry event early in 2019: 'We need to get the image of plastic in oceans out of the public’s mind. Otherwise, we could lose our social license to operate.'"

But then the pandemic came along, igniting mass hysteria about contagion, and suddenly, bans on single-use plastics that had been in the works were reversed in countries around the world: North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

“Overnight, plastics went from public enemy No. 1 to consumers asking for everything to have as much packaging as possible and to be single use," said one gleeful analyst for Shell Oil, who are a major plastics player.

The urgency of the plastics situation remains invisible to most people, lined up at the drive-thru for their coffee or Chick-Fil-A, piling up nearly 250 pounds of plastic waste every year. (That's what the average American amasses — more than any other country.)

But there are brave, pro-environment efforts being made by Dallas companies and organizations, big and small.

La Casita Bakeshop cup Revolutionary compostable cup at La Casita Bakeshop.Facebook

Dallas efforts
The Dallas restaurants and organizations listed below have taken steps to fight waste, even though it costs them money.

Plastic Free Lunch Day is November 22
Dallas ISD’s Food and Child Nutrition Services will participate in Plastic Free Lunch Day on November 22, to help reduce the amount of single-use plastic in school cafeterias.

Plastic Free Lunch Day was started by middle school students in Brooklyn. The initiative was such a success that it was adopted by all New York City public schools in 2022. The concept has since spread to public schools across the country — including Dallas ISD, which was the first in Texas to participate, when it joined up in 2022.

It creates an opportunity to educate students and the community on ways to positively impact the environment, including skipping plastic. Dallas school cafeterias will replace the plastic items they regularly use during lunch with biodegradable alternatives. (Plastic cutlery, cups, and straws will be available upon request for the crybabies.)

Southwest Airlines bamboo cup
Southwest Airlines Co., the Dallas-based airline, has introduced a new bamboo cup for inflight cold beverages, and a wood stir stick in place of a plastic stick. The airline expects the new items to reduce its inflight single-use plastics by more than 1.5 million pounds annually.

In July 2024, Southwest transitioned to a paper overwrap for its napkins made from 100 percent post-consumer recycled materials — fully eliminating plastic from this service item. The airline is making an effort to eliminate single-use plastics from inflight service by 2030.

La Casita Bakeshop compostable cups
La Casita Bakeshop, the award-winning bakery and cafe operation, recently debuted fabulous new cups that are 100 percent compostable, soil- and marine-biodegradable, breaking down naturally after 90 days. and are made from natural materials.

"We are always trying to find ways to be more environmentally friendly and this is a big way we can," they said in their post announcing the new cups. "We just want to be proud of our paper trail and being a restaurant it's hard to do that."

Smoothie King biodegrable cups
Smoothie King, the Dallas-based smoothie chain, previously used styrofoam cups, but began testing a biodegradable cup in 2019. They now offer it as the default choice. They're using Vio Foam, specially made cups that biodegrade 92 percent in four years. They'll still accommodate whiny selfish customers who insist on getting a plastic cup instead, but their Vio foam cup not only helps the environment, it also keeps their smoothies cold a little longer.

Kate Weiser Recycle Box Program
Kate Weiser, the Dallas chocolatier, sells its gorgeous eye-catching bon-bons in a variety of boxes, from 4 pieces all the way up to 35 pieces. (OK, they'll sell them individually, too, but who goes to a chocolate shop and buys a single chocolate?) They have a program where you can bring your empty box to the store and get a refill and get 5 percent off. (Weiser amusingly calls it a "secret hack.")

Dude Sweet Chocolate freezer packaging
Dude Sweet Chocolate, the Oak Cliff chocolatier, has a next-level campaign in which they will accept cold-ship packaging you've received in the mail and re-use it. Say, for example, that you ordered an 8-pack of ice cream pints from Double Rainbow in San Francisco, and it arrived in a box with freezer packs and a foil liner. You can drop that packaging off at Dude Sweet's factory location at 1340 Inwood Rd., and they'll re-use it in one way or another when they're doing shipments of their chocolate.

Note: Whether you're putting it in the blue bin or the gray bin, your plastic is not being recycled. The best course when it comes to plastic, especially single-use plastic, is to not use it at all.

sustainability