• Home
  • popular
  • Events
  • Submit New Event
  • Subscribe
  • About
  • News
  • Restaurants + Bars
  • City Life
  • Entertainment
  • Travel
  • Real Estate
  • Arts
  • Society
  • Home + Design
  • Fashion + Beauty
  • Innovation
  • Sports
  • Charity Guide
  • children
  • education
  • health
  • veterans
  • SOCIAL SERVICES
  • ARTS + CULTURE
  • animals
  • lgbtq
  • New Charity
  • Series
  • Delivery Limited
  • DTX Giveaway 2012
  • DTX Ski Magic
  • dtx woodford reserve manhattans
  • Your Home in the Sky
  • DTX Best of 2013
  • DTX Trailblazers
  • Tastemakers Dallas 2017
  • Healthy Perspectives
  • Neighborhood Eats 2015
  • The Art of Making Whiskey
  • DTX International Film Festival
  • DTX Tatum Brown
  • Tastemaker Awards 2016 Dallas
  • DTX McCurley 2014
  • DTX Cars in Lifestyle
  • DTX Beyond presents Party Perfect
  • DTX Texas Health Resources
  • DART 2018
  • Alexan Central
  • State Fair 2018
  • Formula 1 Giveaway
  • Zatar
  • CityLine
  • Vision Veritas
  • Okay to Say
  • Hearts on the Trinity
  • DFW Auto Show 2015
  • Northpark 50
  • Anteks Curated
  • Red Bull Cliff Diving
  • Maggie Louise Confections Dallas
  • Gaia
  • Red Bull Global Rally Cross
  • NorthPark Holiday 2015
  • Ethan's View Dallas
  • DTX City Centre 2013
  • Galleria Dallas
  • Briggs Freeman Sotheby's International Realty Luxury Homes in Dallas Texas
  • DTX Island Time
  • Simpson Property Group SkyHouse
  • DIFFA
  • Lotus Shop
  • Holiday Pop Up Shop Dallas
  • Clothes Circuit
  • DTX Tastemakers 2014
  • Elite Dental
  • Elan City Lights
  • Dallas Charity Guide
  • DTX Music Scene 2013
  • One Arts Party at the Plaza
  • J.R. Ewing
  • AMLI Design District Vibrant Living
  • Crest at Oak Park
  • Braun Enterprises Dallas
  • NorthPark
  • Victory Park
  • DTX Common Desk
  • DTX Osborne Advisors
  • DTX Comforts of Home 2012
  • DFW Showcase Tour of Homes
  • DTX Neighborhood Eats
  • DTX Comforts of Home 2013
  • DTX Auto Awards
  • Cottonwood Art Festival 2017
  • Nasher Store
  • Guardian of The Glenlivet
  • Zyn22
  • Dallas Rx
  • Yellow Rose Gala
  • Opendoor
  • DTX Sun and Ski
  • Crow Collection
  • DTX Tastes of the Season
  • Skye of Turtle Creek Dallas
  • Cottonwood Art Festival
  • DTX Charity Challenge
  • DTX Culture Motive
  • DTX Good Eats 2012
  • DTX_15Winks
  • St. Bernard Sports
  • Jose
  • DTX SMU 2014
  • DTX Up to Speed
  • st bernard
  • Ardan West Village
  • DTX New York Fashion Week spring 2016
  • Taste the Difference
  • Parktoberfest 2016
  • Bob's Steak and Chop House
  • DTX Smart Luxury
  • DTX Earth Day
  • DTX_Gaylord_Promoted_Series
  • IIDA Lavish
  • Huffhines Art Trails 2017
  • Red Bull Flying Bach Dallas
  • Y+A Real Estate
  • Beauty Basics
  • DTX Pet of the Week
  • Long Cove
  • Charity Challenge 2014
  • Legacy West
  • Wildflower
  • Stillwater Capital
  • Tulum
  • DTX Texas Traveler
  • Dallas DART
  • Soldiers' Angels
  • Alexan Riveredge
  • Ebby Halliday Realtors
  • Zephyr Gin
  • Sixty Five Hundred Scene
  • Christy Berry
  • Entertainment Destination
  • Dallas Art Fair 2015
  • St. Bernard Sports Duck Head
  • Jameson DTX
  • Alara Uptown Dallas
  • Cottonwood Art Festival fall 2017
  • DTX Tastemakers 2015
  • Cottonwood Arts Festival
  • The Taylor
  • Decks in the Park
  • Alexan Henderson
  • Gallery at Turtle Creek
  • Omni Hotel DTX
  • Red on the Runway
  • Whole Foods Dallas 2018
  • Artizone Essential Eats
  • Galleria Dallas Runway Revue
  • State Fair 2016 Promoted
  • Trigger's Toys Ultimate Cocktail Experience
  • Dean's Texas Cuisine
  • Real Weddings Dallas
  • Real Housewives of Dallas
  • Jan Barboglio
  • Wildflower Arts and Music Festival
  • Hearts for Hounds
  • Okay to Say Dallas
  • Indochino Dallas
  • Old Forester Dallas
  • Dallas Apartment Locators
  • Dallas Summer Musicals
  • PSW Real Estate Dallas
  • Paintzen
  • DTX Dave Perry-Miller
  • DTX Reliant
  • Get in the Spirit
  • Bachendorf's
  • Holiday Wonder
  • Village on the Parkway
  • City Lifestyle
  • opportunity knox villa-o restaurant
  • Nasher Summer Sale
  • Simpson Property Group
  • Holiday Gift Guide 2017 Dallas
  • Carlisle & Vine
  • DTX New Beginnings
  • Get in the Game
  • Red Bull Air Race
  • Dallas DanceFest
  • 2015 Dallas Stylemaker
  • Youth With Faces
  • Energy Ogre
  • DTX Renewable You
  • Galleria Dallas Decadence
  • Bella MD
  • Tractorbeam
  • Young Texans Against Cancer
  • Fresh Start Dallas
  • Dallas Farmers Market
  • Soldier's Angels Dallas
  • Shipt
  • Elite Dental
  • Texas Restaurant Association 2017
  • State Fair 2017
  • Scottish Rite
  • Brooklyn Brewery
  • DTX_Stylemakers
  • Alexan Crossings
  • Ascent Victory Park
  • Top Texans Under 30 Dallas
  • Discover Downtown Dallas
  • San Luis Resort Dallas
  • Greystar The Collection
  • FIG Finale
  • Greystar M Line Tower
  • Lincoln Motor Company
  • The Shelby
  • Jonathan Goldwater Events
  • Windrose Tower
  • Gift Guide 2016
  • State Fair of Texas 2016
  • Choctaw Dallas
  • TodayTix Dallas promoted
  • Whole Foods
  • Unbranded 2014
  • Frisco Square
  • Unbranded 2016
  • Circuit of the Americas 2018
  • The Katy
  • Snap Kitchen
  • Partners Card
  • Omni Hotels Dallas
  • Landmark on Lovers
  • Harwood Herd
  • Galveston.com Dallas
  • Holiday Happenings Dallas 2018
  • TenantBase
  • Cottonwood Art Festival 2018
  • Hawkins-Welwood Homes
  • The Inner Circle Dallas
  • Eating in Season Dallas
  • ATTPAC Behind the Curtain
  • TodayTix Dallas
  • The Alexan
  • Toyota Music Factory
  • Nosh Box Eatery
  • Wildflower 2018
  • Society Style Dallas 2018
  • Texas Scottish Rite Hospital 2018
  • 5 Mockingbird
  • 4110 Fairmount
  • Visit Taos
  • Allegro Addison
  • Dallas Tastemakers 2018
  • The Village apartments
  • City of Burleson Dallas

    Leslie Brenner Comes Out

    Beleaguered Dallas restaurant critic does surprising backflip and goes public

    Teresa Gubbins
    Oct 31, 2014 | 8:29 am
    Dallas Morning News restaurant critic Leslie Brenner
    Dallas Morning News restaurant critic Leslie Brenner is anonymous no more.
    Courtesy photo

    After years of vigorously defending the necessity of anonymity in the field of restaurant criticism, Dallas Morning News critic Leslie Brenner has "outed" herself with a big reveal. A newspaper interactive feature shares two photos of the critic, as well as a video to explain the abrupt change of heart.

    "Dining incognito is the ideal way for a restaurant critic to operate — and it's the way I was able to work for the first few years I was on the dining beat here in Dallas," she writes. "But now I'm going to work in a different way."

    This sudden change in policy represents a backflip not only by Brenner, but also the Dallas Morning News, which has in the past exerted its influence on the behavior of previous critics, under the pretext of maintaining journalistic credibility.

    Given her long-standing defense of anonymity, Leslie Brenner's reversal represents a major shift in her ethical stance.

    Given her long-standing defense of anonymity, Brenner's reversal represents a major shift in her ethical stance. Up until now, she's championed anonymity as a defining characteristic of a "professional" food critic, one that separates the critic from mere bloggers. She's even criticized other critics who've abandoned anonymity.

    In her words
    In a 2009 interview posted on SideDish shortly after she was hired by the Dallas Morning News, Brenner said that anonymity is extremely important for a critic.

    "It's extremely important for a critic to dine anonymously, and that's what I'll be doing," she said. "For one thing, although chefs can only cook as well as they can cook, if an executive chef recognizes a critic in the room, the chef can be sure to be on the line — to personally take charge of the critic's order — when he or she might otherwise have left it in charge of a sous or a chef de cuisine.

    "It's easy to ratchet up the quality control if you know a critic's in the house."

    In the same interview, she asserts that anonymity matters with service, as well: "Especially when it comes to more formal dining, there's tremendous skill involved in serving seamlessly – remaining inobtrusive [sic], yet still anticipating diners' needs — and recognizing a critic can't magically give a waiter that skill," she said.

    In her book, The Fourth Star: Dispatches From Inside Daniel Boulud's Celebrated New York Restaurant, she disputes the statement by critic William Grimes that he was treated no differently when he was recognized at a restaurant. "I've been behind the pass, and I see what happens," she said.

    And when former Houston Press critic Robb Walsh abandoned his efforts at anonymity, Brenner called him out, citing a Los Angeles Times column she said she assigned to writer Regina Schrambling, which read that restaurants can't do much to instantly improve things if they know a critic is in the house.

    "Dropping anonymity makes life much easier for the critic," she said in the past. "But it simply doesn't serve our readers to do so when there's a choice."

    "Right. Not instantly," Brenner said. "But given about five minutes (Chef! Get your butt over to the restaurant!!!!), they absolutely can. Not to admit that is folly."

    "Dropping anonymity makes life much easier for the critic," she said. "But it simply doesn't serve our readers to do so when there's a choice."

    Belo backdown
    Brenner's defense of anonymity has been matched over the years by her employer. When '80s-era critic Waltrina Stovall was appointed, she was ordered to resign her membership in Les Dames d'Escoffier, the women's food and beverage group, because the newspaper fretted that her identity would be revealed to member chefs, says Dolores Snyder, founder of the Dallas chapter.

    And when Dotty Griffith was designated critic in 1997, the newspaper underwrote her "makeover" and haircut in an effort to counteract the recognizable profile she'd already carved out as food editor.

    Anonymity remains the guideline recommended by the Association of Food Journalists, a professional organization to which the Dallas Morning News dining staff has always been heavily subscribed, with three staffers currently listed as members, including Brenner.

    "Reviews should be conducted as anonymously as possible," says AFJ. "The goal of restaurant criticism is to experience the restaurant just as ordinary patrons do. However, true anonymity is often no longer possible. In that case, critics should engage in the practice of anonymity. Ideally, that means keeping all photos and social-media profiles photo-free and restricting public appearances."

    Mysterious timing
    In Brenner's video, she states that the profession is "evolving" and she wants to be on the "cutting edge" of that change. But it's hard to buy the cutting-edge theory, given the stream of critics who've already shed anonymity in a deliberate manner in the past five-plus years, from Walsh's announcement in 2009; to Chicago Tribune critic Phil Vettel, San Francisco Chronicle food writer Jonathan Kaufmann and Houston Chronicle critic Alison Cook in 2012; to Baltimore Sun critic Richard Gorelick in 2013; to New York magazine critic Adam Platt who famously revealed himself in December 2013; to Mimi Brodeur in June 2014. Stop me at any time here.

    Rather than cutting edge, the timing of the reveal comes less than a month after an unfortunate and highly publicized incident at Dallas restaurant Proof + Pantry.

    Rather than cutting edge, the timing of the reveal comes less than a month after an unfortunate and highly publicized incident at Dallas restaurant Proof + Pantry. Brenner, her husband Thierry Peremarti, her highly ranked superior Keven Ann Willey and Willey's husband Georges Badoux, went on a restaurant review — one that, incidentally, included approximately four cocktails and three bottles of wine, a liquor tally unprecedented in this tightly budgeted media era.

    Uninterested in a Brenner review, Proof + Pantry refused her credit card payment, and a contretemps ensued. Brenner and her party left $500 in cash on the table. The next day, owners Michael Martensen and Sal Jafar II attempted to return the money at the newspaper offices, where they met with Willey and Lifestyles editor Lisa Thatcher Kresl.

    A number of questionable behaviors were described during the encounter, including shouting and threats at the restaurant, as well as arrogant-sounding statements by Belo staffers such as, "We'll see what our readers think about you refusing service to someone," and "You don’t get to make that decision about whether or not we write a review."

    The SideDish post describing the incident has drawn 231 comments.

    The Proof + Pantry scrap follows yet another controversy in July 2014 that involved Brenner and John Tesar, chef at Dallas restaurants Spoon and Knife. Tesar issued his now-infamous "fuck you" tweet, vocalizing a widespread disenchantment with Brenner's criticism. That dust-up drew national attention, including a column on Esquire.com that detailed the success of Tesar's campaign and that described Brenner as being "on the wrong side of history."

    Brenner and her employer can try all they want to spin this newfound notoriety into celebrity by splashing her photo in public, but their effort reeks of a smoke screen, a distraction designed to hide deeper issues within the culture and management of the newspaper that created this monster in the first place.

    In 2009, Brenner wrote, "I can tell you from having dined in Los Angeles as both a known food-world person when I was editor of the L.A. Times Food section and as an under-the-radar civilian that the service — and even often the cooking — are very different if you're known to be a food writer or editor. It's night and day.

    "True, restaurant kitchens can't suddenly produce brilliant cooking if they can't already. But they can make sure the executive chef is taking care of your plate personally, and that you're assigned the best waitstaff. If you're recognized as a critic? Fuggedaboudit."

    Post-Tesar, post-Proof + Pantry, she writes: "Our readers benefited from an excellent incognito run when I began," but now she's "dropping the ritual."

    It appears that the "excellent incognito run" benefiting "the readers" has come to an end.

    unspecified
    news/restaurants-bars

    most read posts

    Dallas chef nominated for James Beard award parts ways with restaurant

    Official list of 4th of July events and fireworks around Dallas in 2025

    Dallas restaurants heat up new summer menus in this roundup of news

    Crepe News

    Sweet Paris crepe chain folds in another Dallas location in Addison

    Teresa Gubbins
    Jun 19, 2025 | 6:16 pm
    Sweet Paris Creperie S'mores crepe
    Photo by Julie Soefer
    undefined

    Sweet crepes are coming to Addison via Sweet Paris Crêperie & Café, the Houston-based crêpes chain, which is opening a location in Prestonwood Place, at 5290 Belt Line Rd. #110, with doors expected to open in early 2026.

    Sweet Paris was founded in Houston in 2012 by Ivan and Allison Chavez with a mission to revive the art of eating crepes. There's a location in Southlake, which opened in 2024, and another in McKinney, which just opened in June. (There's also a location coming soon to Dallas' Snider Plaza.)

    The menu offers 20 crepes in varieties savory and sweet including dulce de leche, lemon & sugar, s'mores, chicken enchilada, Philly cheesesteak, and a vegan option with portobello mushrooms, black bean purée, corn salsa, and chipotle sauce.

    While crepes are the signature, they also serve waffles, egg breakfasts, panini, and salads. A "croque madame" crepe has scrambled eggs, gruyère, smoked ham, & béchamel sauce, while an Alaskan has smoked salmon, pickled red onions, capers, and scrambled eggs, topped with dill sour cream, & scallions. Everything is $20 or less.

    They also serve beer and wine, mimosas, milkshakes, espresso drinks such as lattes, and hot chocolate.

    This new location marks the third of four units to be developed by franchisee duo Ludo and Yi Le Gall.

    “We fell in love with Sweet Paris the moment we discovered it,” Ludo says in a statement. “Bringing this unique experience to Texans has been a dream come true, and we’re thrilled to grow our presence throughout the state with a new location in Addison.”

    Situated within Restaurant Row at Belt Line & Montford, Prestonwood Place includes hot hot restaurants like Mendocino Farms, Flower Child, Loro, Postino, Original Pancake House, and more. All it was missing was crepes. Now that niche has been filled by Sweet Paris, with crêpes, coffee, and charm.

    Sweet Paris Crêperie & Café has been growing and now has 21 stores in operation in Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, Texas, and Mexico.

    breakfastopenings
    news/restaurants-bars
    Loading...