Tastemaker Awards

10 best restaurants in Dallas for a glass (or bottle) of wine in 2022

Who has the best wine in town.

Courtesy photo

Let's raise a glass to the 2022 CultureMap Dallas Tastemaker Awards, our annual celebration shining a light on the city's top culinary talent.

Dallas' best food & beverage professionals and institutions have been nominated by a panel of judges consisting of former CultureMap Tastemaker Award winners and local F&B experts, in categories such as Neighborhood Restaurant of the Year, Bar of the Year, Best New Pizza, Bartender of the Year, Brewery of the Year, Pastry Chef, and Rising Star Chef.

There's also the Best New Restaurant of 2022, a bracket-style tournament that readers get to decide; to vote, click here.

Winners will be revealed at our Tastemaker Awards party on May 12 at Fashion Industry Gallery, emceed by comedian CJ Starr, when attendees get to dine on bites from nominated restaurants and find out what the buzz is all about. (Tickets are on sale here.)

This entry pays tribute to the top wine programs in town. They include everything from wine lists with a special focus to places with a strong by-the-glass program to places with exclusive labels you won't find anywhere else.

Here are our nominees for 2022 Wine Program of the Year:

Postino Deep Ellum
Phoenix-based chain made its Dallas debut with this location in Deep Ellum which opened in 2021 with a menu of bites and shareable dishes. With about 30 options, its wine list is not huge, but what's most notable is that each is available not only by the bottle but also by the glass.

Villa Azur Dallas
Glamorous restaurant from Miami resides at the W Hotel in Victory Park with an extensive wine selection and menu of French-Mediterranean food that's almost easy to get lost beneath the glitzy party vibe. The wine list has big bottles at big prices, but its notable trait — perhaps unsurprisingly, given its whole party vibe — is its big selection of sparkling wines.

Monarch
Restaurant at the National building in downtown Dallas is a wood-fired modern Italian concept imagined by Michelin chef Danny Grant and team. The restaurant is famous for its elegant space and expansive views as well as its pasta, steaks, and seafood — with a steakhouse-style wine list to match. If you're looking to splurge on a showpiece bottle, this is the place to do it in 2022.

Homewood Dallas
Highly rated restaurant from acclaimed chef Matt McCallister has a secret weapon in its wine program, overseen by sommelier Lauren Loiselle which many wine lovers say is the best in town. It's recognized for its selection, from natural wines to cool wines from non-obvious locations such as New York, as well as the way the selections pair so agreeably with the menu. It's also dynamic and ever-changing, with new labels regularly rotated in.

Sister
Buzzy Italian on Greenville Avenue boasts a one-of-a-kind wine list with Italian treasures that make for synchronous pairing with the food. That includes wines from Puglia, Piedmont, Sicily, and Tuscany, with a few surprises thrown in such as a merlot from Napa Valley. The by-the-glass selection is plentiful, from Drappier Champagne from France to vermentino from Tuscany to sangiovese by Casanova di Neri Irrosso, accessibly priced from $11 to $24 per glass.

Neighborhood Cellar
Bishop Arts wine shop and wine bar offers wine by the glass, flights, tastings, charcuterie, and snacks, plus a wine club and natural wines. Their merchandise includes really special bottles and the prices are not outrageous, with a majority of options in the $20-$25 range. They have quite a few sparkling options ranging from Cava to Frizzante, subtly fizzy pinks and reds from Italy.

Trova Wine + Market
Cozy, stylish wine shop and bar features wines from around the world, as well as a small menu of local and artisanal food stuffs. They're constantly adding intriguing wines from around the world such as Aperture Chenin Blanc, from the North Coast of San Francisco Bay, vibrant with notes of passion fruit, nectarines, and honeysuckle, and available not only by the bottle, but also by the glass.

Boulevardier
Oak Cliff restaurant comes from good wine stock: It's a sibling to Veritas Wine Room, which won the 2021 Tastemaker Award for Best Wine Program, and owners Brooks and Bradley Anderson are oenophiles who seek uncommon labels at a variety of price points. Boulevardier has 18 by-the-glass options a well as a special section of limited bottles such as the 2016 Alsace Grand Cru Riesling by Domaine Paul Blanck and the 2015 Napa Valley Opus One proprietary red.

Clink Wine Bar
Flower Mound resident and sommelier Laura Black opened this wine-centric spot in 2020 to celebrate the community aspect of wine, something to be shared with family or friends while enjoying moments big and small. Clink's approach to wine is extremely user-friendly with 10 wines on tap, plus 11 wine flights identified by terms such as "Go Big and Bold" and "Interesting Whites." The food menu is totally supportive with charcuterie boards, flatbreads, and snacks.

Written By The Seasons
Fine-dining chef-driven restaurant in Oak Cliff's Bishop Arts serves market-driven dishes using seasonal ingredients. The wine selection is carefully constructed, as well, with many natural wines and boutique options such as Clovis Cotes Du Rhône, a biodynamic French Southern Rhône blend made by a fifth-generation father & son that's a light-medium body vino with bright red fruit expressions of cherry, raspberry, pomegranate & red currant.

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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