Eat Up

This roundup of Dallas restaurant news goes big and bright

This poke from Ocean Prime is as pretty as could be.

Photo courtesy of Ocean Prime

Dallas saw more than its share of restaurant closures this summer, but all of the news in this roundup is happy and bright. There are big openings in Frisco, big-name chef appointments in Dallas, and bold new menus for lunch. Here's the latest happenings in Dallas dining news:

Tupelo Honey Southern Kitchen & Bar brings its iconic scratch-made Southern cuisine to Texas, opening at The Star in Frisco on September 14. The Frisco location, the first in Texas of this North Carolina chain, will feature Southern dishes such as honey-dusted fried chicken; Tex-Mex dishes such as huevos rancheros; and an extensive steak "program" featuring Akashi and Black Angus. Executive chef Thomas Robey, formerly of Commander’s Palace, worked with corporate executive chef Eric Gabrynowicz to develop the Frisco menu.

Fine China, the pan-Asian restaurant opening at the Statler, the iconic downtown hotel, has lured away Angela Hernandez from her post at Top Knot to serve as executive chef. Set to open in the fall, Fine China will serve lunch and dinner, plus a cocktail bar with sake, Japanese whiskies, and high tea. The space will feature communal seating as well as private dining rooms. A graduate of Texas Culinary Academy, Hernandez was sous chef at Uchiko in Austin and at restaurants in Los Angeles and New York. She'll work with chef Graham Dodds, who is culinary director for Epic F&B.

Ocean Prime, the boffo restaurant on Cedar Springs Road, has three new seasonal lunch offerings: King salmon salad with watermelon, tomatoes, red onion, arugula, and feta cheese for $24; chicken sandwich with smoked bacon, Swiss cheese, avocado, pickled red onions, tomato, lettuce, and jalapeño mayo for $18; and a daily poke selection for $23. The lunch card changes seasonally, so if these sound appealing, you'd best be getting on in.

Slater's 50/50, the Greenville restaurant way into bacon, has a new bacon-inspired brunch menu. Menu items include a tater tot breakfast skillet, bread pudding French toast, and bacon buñuelos, which are crispy flour tortillas dusted with cinnamon sugar and topped with bacon and sea salt caramel. Drink features include $2 mimosas, $3 select beers, $6 beermosas, and $4 bacon bloody Marys. For $20, you can get a bacon bloody Mary, plus bacon, bacon bourbon wing, bacon mac & cheese ball, and a 50/50 slider. For $12, you can get a bacon breakfast cocktail flight with Crown Maple, Crown Vanilla, champagne, OJ, and 2 pieces of bacon.

Snuffer's Restaurant & Bar has two limited-edition items on the menu for the month of September. The Big Texan Cheeseburger is topped with Pepper Jack cheese, fried pickles, fried jalapeños, fried onion strings, fried smoked bacon, serrano peppers, and honey barbecue sauce drizzle, served on Texas toast with French fries for $9.99. A Fried Oreos dessert has eight Oreos, deep-fried and topped with ice cream and strawberry sauce, for $3.99.

Nick & Sam's Park Cities is hosting family-style dinners the first Wednesday of every month, with dishes from around the world. The September theme is chicken, with tacos, chicken lollipops, deviled eggs with chicken skin, Thai-style chicken salad, Hawaiian fried chicken, silken chicken soup, duck confit mac ‘n cheese, confit chicken tators, and Yorkshire pudding. The dinners are served at 7 pm and are $50.

RJ Mexican Cuisine, the Mexican restaurant in Dallas’ West End, has launched a daily lunch-specials program featuring a different dish every day of the week. Mondays are tacos. Tuesdays are enchiladas, Wednesday is an intriguing-sounding build-your-own Mexican bowl. Thursdays it's beef or chicken chimichangas, and Fridays it's chicken or beef fajitas. Prices are $7.99-$8.99.

Twin Peaks, the sports lodge chain, has updated its menu with some new dishes. There's a new meat and cheese board with jalapeño-cheddar sausage, bacon, capicola ham, sopressata, smoked gouda, sriracha pimento cheese, Creole mustard, and grilled sourdough. There are two new burgers including a house-made turkey burger with smoked gouda on a whole wheat challah bun; and whoa, a veggie burger made with the popular Beyond Meat plant-based patty, topped with pepper jack on a whole wheat challah bun. Both burgers are served with sweet potato fries. Two new tacos include one made with blackened haddock and another made with buffalo crispy chicken tenders and Napa slaw.

CiboDivino Marketplace, the cool wine bar and casual restaurant at the Sylvan Thirty complex, is hosting wine flights every Thursday, from 4-8 pm, featuring three varietals selected by chef-owner Daniele Puleo from a rotating selection of wines, for an entirely reasonable $16.

Pōk the Raw Bar, the Uptown Dallas poke spot, has gone officially cashless. Owner Brandon Cohanim had always planned to go full plastic since he opened Pōk in February. After observing that a mere 5 percent of the restaurant's orders are paid for in cash, he decided to go for it. "There are so many pros to going cashless," he says in a release. "Not having large amounts of cash in the restaurant reduces the chance for burglary, and alleviates the need for team members to be touching cash. It also allows us to take orders faster, and better serve our guests." The Sandwich Hag in the Cedars District is also cashless. One more and it's a trend.

Deep Ellum News

Mexican 'vibe' restaurant from California to open in Deep Ellum Dallas

Mama Por Dios

A buzzy concept from California is coming to Dallas: Mama Por Dios, a Mexican restaurant chain known for its vibe, will open its first location in Texas in Deep Ellum in the Epic development at 2525 Elm St., taking over the former La Neta space, which shuttered in May.

According to a spokesperson, the restaurant will open in early to mid-January.

Mama Por Dios was founded in Southern California in 2020 by chef Misael Guerrero, who famously got his start selling Mexican sushi out of his garage.

Since those early days, he's gone on to form a restaurant empire called Emme Group, with concepts that include Los Amores de Julia, El Rincon de Los Dolidos, and Culichi Town, a lower-priced chain known for Sinaloa-style Mexican sushi & seafood, which has a local presence: It opened a location in Mesquite in 2022.

Mama Por Dios — which translates to "Mother of God" — describes itself as modern Mexican, offering a unique blend of steakhouse, sushi bar, and seafood. The menu includes favorites like tacos and enchiladas, alongside luxe dishes like lobster with spaghetti, lobster enchiladas, and a surf & turf featuring a lobster tail balanced atop a skirt steak. Prices range from $18 for birria tacos to $48 for a bacon-wrapped filet mignon with mashed potatoes and asparagus.

But they also have a showy side that includes flamboyant presentations such as the bacon-wrapped shrimp which come strung on clothespins; or the trompito al pastor, served on a personal spit, as well as servers who walk around with shots while dancing with patrons.

There's a Gold Burger for $65 featuring Prime beef on a brioche bun garnished with 24k gold leaf, and a similarly gilded tomahawk steak for $400 that brings to mind the good old days of Salt Bae. Decor is swanky with low lighting, and there'll be a serious brunch offering on weekends.

Cocktails such as the Al Agua Pato — served in a mini bathtub with a rubber ducky — are made for Instagram. They offer margarita and mezcalita flights with flavors such as mango, tamarindo, and strawberry, and intriguing sips like Carajillo, a Spanish cocktail with Licor 43, espresso, and 43 different fruit, citrus, aromatic, and herbal ingredients.

There’s also a $20 per-person minimum spend, and the menu comes with a warning that everything is cooked to order — meaning some dishes may take 30 to 40 minutes. For many diners, waiting will surely be part of the experience.

deep-ellum tex-mex openings