Where to Eat

Where to eat in Dallas right now: 10 under-the-radar restaurant debuts

Junction Craft + Kitchen recently opened in Deep Ellum.

Photo courtesy of Junction Craft + Kitchen

Summer is generally not the time of the year you expect restaurants to open. People are out of town; that can keep business down. But summer 2017 in Dallas-Fort Worth is going gangbusters, with restaurants opening like it's the middle of fall, with so many that it's hard to keep up. Here are 10 restaurants that have quietly, recently opened.

Corrientes 348
Argentinian-style steakhouse opened in mid-June in the downtown Dallas building that was formerly Stephan Pyles restaurant. The theme is meat, with a list that goes like this: bone-in tomahawk ribs, rib eye, short ribs, strip loin, bottom sirloin, top sirloin, tenderloin, rack of lamb, leg of lamb, pork ribs, pork chop, and boneless chicken legs. For $92, you can get a meat combo. You can also get rice with meat mixed in, and an appetizer of empanadas filled with beef.

Hudson House
This sibling to the East Hampton Sandwich Co. chain just opened on July 11 on prime Park Cities turf at 4448 Lovers Ln., as a cozy, medium-sized, neighborhood restaurant with inspiration coming from coastal towns in the Northeast. Cuisine includes a raw bar with oysters and shellfish, sharable plates, salads, sandwiches, and entrees. Locals are loving the avocado dip starter and the tuna tower.

IdleRye
New spot in Deep Ellum that opened in late May comes from the restaurant group that owns The Table in Flower Mound. With IdleRye, they're trying to straddle the fence between bar and restaurant, with late hours and aspirational food such as a salad made with Bibb lettuce and a cute side of house-made tater tots with ranch dressing. Other vittles include burgers, deviled eggs, meatballs, pierogies, shrimp toast, and pasta.

Jose
Park Cities peeps are mobbing this Mexican restaurant at 4931 W. Lovers Ln. Owners Megan and Brady Wood wished to evoke their frequent trips to Mexico, their love for tequila, and their desire to have a place for friends and neighbors to gather. Decor and atmosphere are luxe, and prices aren't cheap, with shrimp tacos coming in at $15. To be fair, those shrimp tacos come on house-made blue corn tortillas and are served with black beans and poblano rice.

Junction Craft + Kitchen
Deep Ellum restaurant with the now-retro + in its name bills itself as a Southern-style neighborhood bistro with an Asian twist. On the menu: hot fried chicken, Korean duck leg, miso pork belly, kimchi frittata, fried green tomato Benedict, and Texas sheet cake. On Saturdays, the restaurant hosts a 10-course chef's tasting menu where you are forced to sit at a community table, for $125. Some people like that, though.

North Italia
Unless you've been paying attention, you may have missed the ultra-quiet debut of this bistro that recently opened its first DFW branch in Plano. Just kidding! Fox Restaurant Concepts has been relentlessly pumping the Italian-American sibling to its True Food Kitchen concept, even hosting a two-day preview in which hundreds of foodie types ate for free. There's pasta, salads, and pizza that's pretty good, but don't order the zucchini chips, which are paper-thin and super-greasy. Wines come in three pours, big, medium, and small.

Orno
Cedar Springs restaurant takes over the old Winslow's Wine Bar space (and before that, a juice bar and Buli Cafe), with a menu of tempting shareable dishes. They're open for lunch and dinner, with salads, sandwiches, and fabulous flatbreads with Brie and pear, fig and honey, and a BLT flatbread. Prices are cheap, whether it's polenta cakes for $11 or a green apple salad with arugula, grilled chicken, and cashews for $12.

Revolver Taco Lounge
Deep Ellum offshoot of Fort Worth favorite is a taqueria in front with a massive mural and a handful of tacos on the menu; and a more fancy prix-fixe tasting-menu room in the back, where owner-chef Regino Rojas and chef Hugo Galvan are laying out crudo, duck, prawns, and moles on gold-rimmed plates.

Sandwich Hag
Former pop-up queen graduates into its first brick and mortar location in The Cedars District. The restaurant is casual, outdoor dining, with seating on the patio and a walk-up window for order and pickup. The menu is from scratch and includes bánh mì, Vietnamese salads, curries, rice paper spring rolls, edamame hummus, and Vietnamese coffee.

Sweet Daze Dessert Bar
Innovative doughnut and ice cream shop at 581 W. Campbell Rd. in Richardson begins its soft opening mode on July 12. Sweet Daze comes from the creative team behind OMG Tacos, and serves amazingly photogenic treats in vivid colors, including doughnuts whose icing is tinted to look like the galaxy, and ultra-trendy black ice cream.

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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.

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