Top 100 Dining Trends

10 Dallas restaurants in the top 100 that master the hottest dining trends

Since the publication of our Top 100 — a comprehensive list of the 100 best restaurants in Dallas — we've been reflecting on why we love these restaurants and what makes them great.

Part of what helps a restaurant earn Top 100 status, along with its excellence, is its sense of here and now. Staying up on trends is one of the reasons people like to eat out. Extra points go to restaurants offering ingredients and dishes that feel inventive and new.

Here are 10 hot trends in dining, with 10 restaurants from our Top 100 leading the charge:

Toast, Stock & Barrel
Toast is a new trend that's still hatching in Dallas. So gird yourself, as there will be much toast in your future. Imagine, if you will, a piece of bread toasted and topped with mashed avocado. And there you have your toast. There are those who would say that toasts are merely a repackaged bruschetta. There are those who would say that the idea of toast being a trend at all is beyond silly. We will just say that Stock & Barrel was among the first to bring us toast, and has a pretty keen version with crushed avocado, Spanish chorizo, and balsamic gastrique.

Caulifower, Resident Taqueria
Once an ugly ducking, cauliflower has become one of the hottest, sexiest ingredients to feature on a restaurant menu. A lot of it has to do with the whole vegan thing. Cauliflower has a firm, almost meaty texture. Restaurants like 18th & Vine, Rapscallion, and Woodshed Smokehouse in Fort Worth can treat it like it's meat, whether that's smoking a whole head like it's a brisket, or grilling it and call it "steak." Lake Highlands' chef-driven Resident Taqueria spotlights cauliflower as the star of a taco that has become its most famous dish. The cauliflower is roasted until caramelized, paired with kale — trendy in its own right — sprinkled pumpkin seeds, and dressed with a lemon-epazote aioli.

Fried chicken, Sissy's Southern Kitchen & Bar
Fried chicken is hardly a new food group; just ask Babe's. But we are talking about elevated fried chicken. Fried chicken served with champagne, a la Max's Wine Dive. Fried chicken by chefs, à la Jeffery Hobbs at Slow Bone. Fried chicken that comes from special birds, à la Street's Fine Chicken. But the first in town to glam up fried chicken and transform it into a foodie pick was Lisa Garza at Sissy's Southern Kitchen, where it gets pressure-fried — pressure-cooked in oil — achieving a desirable result that's both tender and crisp.

Beet salad, Cafe Momentum
In the world of salads, we're on the tail end of a kale salad trend so dominant, you can even find it at Chick-fil-A. That clears the way for the comeback of one of the trendiest salads in foodie history: that '00-era classic, the beet salad. Beet salads became so popular that they began to symbolize a lack of creativity. But beets are back at restaurants such as Cafe Momentum where they're reunited with their old friend goat cheese, then primped with basil, olive oil, and pumpkin seeds, or at Stock + Barrel, where they're smoked and accompanied by creamy chevre, pickled shallots, black currants, and crispy garlic.

Ramen, Ten Ramen
Ramen has been simmering as a trend in Dallas, with fun new spots bubbling up across town, from Ramen Hakata in North Dallas to Tanoshii Ramen in Deep Ellum to Wabi House on Greenville Avenue, serving ramen and Japanese small plates. But the spot that feels most authentic is Ten Ramen, from Teiichi Sakurai, owner of Tei An restaurant at One Arts Plaza. The setup mimics spots in Japan, where you stand at the counter while you eat your soup, quick and easy. There are usually four to five ramen options, such as basic tonkotsu, veggie, and the popular spicy mazemen ramen, where you hold the broth.

Bowls, HG Sply Co.
For any restaurant with aspirations to be cool and hip, the menu must have a "bowls" category. It's the hottest trend in 2016. In the world of bowls, aka power bowls, you mix-and-match ingredients from categories such as grains, proteins, and vegetables. This might sound like a prototypical meal you'd get on a plate, but bowls are supposed to be healthier. That's surely the message conveyed by HG Sply Co., among the first in Dallas to offer bowls, with a broad menu of options ranging from sweet potato hash to quinoa to bacon.

Lobster roll, 20 Feet Seafood Joint
In Maine, lobster is tourist food. When there's some left over, you chop it up, toss it in mayonnaise, and stick it in a hot dog bun. It is not a dish of glory — until you leave New England, where it acquires an upscale, exotic tint. Dallas has been on a lobster roll kick for a couple of years, popular at reasonably priced spots such as East Hampton Sandwich Co. and TJ's Seafood, where it's presented as an affordable indulgence. It's a best-seller at 20 Feet Seafood Joint, the East Dallas seafood spot from chef Marc Cassel, where he solves the problem of getting the correct split-top bun by baking it in-house.

Long dry-aged meat, Knife
Letting food sit around before you eat it might seem counterintuitive to basic hygienic practices. But some steak spots around the country are pushing the envelope by aging meat for weeks and even months. This includes Knife, the steakhouse at Highland Dallas hotel, where an in-house meat locker ages rib-eyes and other cuts for 240 days or more. That's darn near a year — far beyond the 21- to 28-day industry standard found at classic steakhouses such as Pappas Bros. The process makes the beef taste almost gamey. It's edgy stuff — no surprise, it's chef John Tesar.

Craft beer, Malai Kitchen
The craft beer trend in Dallas-Fort Worth has been ablaze for five-plus years and shows no slack. Breweries keep coming. Bars trade out the old Bud-Miller taps for locally made beer. More restaurants put beer on the menu; some host dinners pairing courses with beer. Brewpubs like Braindead Brewing brew beer and have a chef-driven kitchen to match. Vietnamese-Thai restaurant Malai Kitchen takes the next step. It's a restaurant first that branched out into brewing, with a lineup that includes rice lager and IPA, and what fine beers they are.

Cured meat tasting, Proof + Pantry
The meat tasting is really just a subset of your standard charcuterie plate, which truthfully deserves its own spot on this list. Charcuterie is like kale; who isn't doing it these days? For the next generation of meating, look to the tasting, featuring an assortment of different meats drawn from the same category. Knife Dallas got the ball rolling with its tasting of bacon. One Arts Plaza restaurant Proof + Pantry picks up the baton with its tasting of hams. For $21, you get a slice of serrano, a slice of speck, some toasts, and pickled cauliflower. Precious? Yes. And so trendy.

Meat tastings, a subset of charcuterie, are a new dining trend.

Ham tasting at Knife restaurant in Dallas

Knife/Facebook

Meat tastings, a subset of charcuterie, are a new dining trend.

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Food trends

Dallas-Fort Worth pitmasters lead Texas’ growing halal BBQ boom

Levant BBQ

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FORT WORTH, Texas (RNS) — At 9 am on a scorching Saturday in June, nearly 100 people were already lined up outside Goldee’s BBQ, a small, wooden-shack restaurant.

First in line was 30-year-old Thanh Huynh, who had been sitting in a lawn chair on the joint’s rustic porch since 6:30 am.

“I have, like, a whole list, and I’m going to spend lots of money here. It’ll be worth it,” he said, laughing while rattling off a long order of meats and sides from his phone’s Notes app as a sweet, smoky scent from nearby pits hung in the air.

Opened in 2020 by a group of his friends, the restaurant was named the No. 1 barbecue spot in the state by Texas Monthly a year later, and then won a Bib Gourmand award from the prestigious Michelin Guide, given for “great food at a great value.”

The restaurant serves classic Texas barbecue like craft pork belly, sausage, and ribs. But it also offers halal brisket, turkey, and lamb.

"Halal" means meat raised and butchered in accordance with Islamic guidelines. It refers to the method in which the animals are slaughtered, one that focuses on humane treatment, cleanliness, and acknowledging the value of life — similar in concept to kosher food in Judaism.

A growing number of halal places have opened around Fort Worth in recent years, and there are also non-halal restaurants that use halal beef, such as burger institution Kincaid's, the new Burger Vault in Keller, and the forthcoming Tick Tock Taco in Colleyville.

Growing Texas trend
At a time when Republican leaders are increasingly targeting the state’s growing Muslim communities, halal barbecue joints like Goldee’s are thriving in Texas. Across the state, Muslim pitmasters are gaining recognition for putting their own spin on one of Texas’ most iconic culinary traditions.

Goldee's Barbecue is an acclaimed BBQ joint in Fort Worth. Goldee's Barbecue/ Facebook

At least a dozen barbecue spots now serve halal meats, including Yearby’s Barbecue & Waterice, run by Black Muslim couple CJ and Sabrina Henley, soon-to-be in Plano; and Levant Mediterranean BBQ, a restaurant with locations in Houston and Frisco and whose all-beef menu includes a brisket shawarma sandwich.

“Now there are so many options, and for us to have highly rated barbecue, it’s a blessing,” said Haris Ghaffar, who drove an hour from Celina and stood in 90-degree weather for nearly two hours with a friend for the halal options at Goldee’s.

Growing up in the 1990s, Ghaffar said a McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwich was one of the few halal meals he could eat while dining out. Back then, halal food was seen as serving a small community. Today, it’s a multibillion-dollar industry that’s part of the American culinary mainstream, said James Beard Award‑winning food writer Farhan Mustafa, who wrote about the rise of American halal barbecue for Bon Appétit magazine in 2025.

“Halal food is American food,” said Mustafa, who is based in Seattle. “It belongs on your plate. It belongs in the casual chat. It belongs in hip hop tracks. It’s the most American thing there is.”

Mustafa said Muslims are part of a growing list of communities putting their stamp on Texas barbecue. “Whether they’re first, second or third-generation Muslims or Muslim Americans or just Americans, they’re bringing what they know and what excites them,” he said.

More than salt and pepper
Texas barbecue is typically defined by salt-and-pepper brisket and pork ribs, but this new crop of halal pitmasters are adding inventive twists, often based on their own family heritages.

Zain Shafi, a pitmaster and co-owner of Goldee’s, previously ran Sabar Barbecue, a food truck that offered Pakistani-infused halal dishes, such as brisket with rub that included spices like bay leaf and coriander.

Sabar was nominated for Best BBQ in CultureMap's 2025 Tastemaker Awards, and made the list of Texas Monthly's Top 50 Barbecue Restaurants of 2025. The restaurant was also featured in a recently published BBQ book Texas BBQ: The Art of Low and Slow. He closed Sabar in December 2025 after two years.

Sabar BBQ Sabar Barbecue offered a Pakistani twist on BBQ. Sabar Barbecue

Shafi brought tandoori smoked turkey to Goldee’s menu. And sourcing halal cuts, he said, was a natural choice because they are “the highest quality” meats.

Goldee’s chef and part owner Nupohn Inthanousay also blends his Laotian heritage, serving a smoked Lao “sai oua” sausage with sticky rice and a fiery, tangy dipping sauce.

At Kafi BBQ in Irving, owner Salahodeen Abdul-Kafi brings halal Wagyu beef and Iraqi spices to classic Texas barbecue, challenging what he said is the “traditional old guard of Texas barbecue.”

“My goal at Kafi BBQ is to make the best barbecue in Texas,” Abdul-Kafi said. “I have not been shy about that at all, and making the best barbecue in Texas does not necessarily have to include pork.”

A former Silicon Valley tech worker, he moved to Texas six years ago in search of a Muslim community. On weekends in his backyard, he smoked brisket for friends. By 2024, he bought a smoker and opened Kafi BBQ.

He said he spent months testing and perfecting recipes and finding local producers. Abdul-Kafi attributes his obsession with crafting a stand-out menu to the Islamic concept of “Ihsan”— an Arabic term meaning doing something with excellence for the sake of God.

On a Sunday afternoon this summer, the restaurant’s red booths were packed with diners, drawn to menu items like the 13-spice Wagyu brisket, pomegranate-glazed beef belly burnt ends and Iraqi-inspired spicy beef sausage.

“That sausage, I’d probably put it at the top sausage I’ve ever had, and we eat barbecue a lot. This place is unique,” said Jonathan Tate, a Fort Worth resident who came to Kafi BBQ with a friend after reading about it on a Facebook foodie group.

“I don’t necessarily have to have it halal, but it’s nice to know they took good care of the food, the meat,” his friend Jon Sklar said, before going back in line to order oxtail.

Meat at Kafi BBQ in Irving. Kafi BBQ

'We love barbecue'
Although political rhetoric against Muslims in Texas has become increasingly hostile — some GOP lawmakers even discussed a ban on halal food at a conference this month — pitmasters like Abdul-Kafi see the rise of halal barbecue as an effective counterargument.

“It’s an example of exactly the opposite of what the Islamophobes talk about, right?” he said. “They say, ‘oh, Muslims don’t integrate, they stay alone, they don’t help society and all this stuff.’ And it’s like, I’m sitting here contributing to the most well-known cuisine of Texas.”

One of the diners at Kafi BBQ, Houston native Muhammad Sohail, 23, said the restaurant reflects who he is — a proud Texan and Muslim. “This place is super important because I can see halal within the culture of Texas, which is my culture at this point,” Sohail said. “We love the food. We love meat. We’re Muslims and we love barbecue.”

After finishing a big lunch with 10 relatives, Areeba Ali, a Dallas native of Indian heritage, said the restaurant’s appeal cuts across communities, which she said is evidence that halal barbecue isn’t a niche but resonates broadly with Texans. “If you look around in the restaurant, you see everybody in there — it’s not just one demographic in there,” Ali said.

For Mustafa, that success is ultimately a testament to the resilience of Muslim American communities.

“No matter how much they try to erase us, our food is here to stay,” he said. “You will see the power of just good food and the fact that most people really seem to understand that this is just as American as anything else.”

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This story was written and produced by Religion News Service and distributed by The Associated Press. It also includes information from the CultureMap archives.

halal halal barbecue muslim communities pitmasters religion texas texas barbecue trends culinary traditions goldee's barbecue