Dessert News

Sweetest restaurant Sugar Factory opens in Dallas with red-carpet hoo-ha

Smoking drinks are just the tip of the iceberg.

Photo courtesy of Sugar Factory

The sweetness has arrived: Sugar Factory American Brasserie, the restaurant known for over-the-top sweets, is opening its first location in Texas in Dallas, at 1900 Cedar Springs Rd., in a former Ruth's Chris.

According to a release, it's opening on November 5 with a celebrity appearance and some red-carpet pizzazz.

Sugar Factory was originally founded as a candy store in 2009 before owner Charissa Davidovici, a former schoolteacher, expanded it into a candy store-restaurant combo. Dining there means larger-than-life smoking goblets, insane milkshakes, and interactive experiences designed partially for eating and drinking but also very much for Instagramming.

Atmosphere
The Dallas location features a main dining area with 200 seats, plus colored flower walls perfect for posing, and an elaborate 3D floral ceiling.

A private dining room is available for parties of up to 66 people. The bar has 20 seats and 40 high-top tables, with full menu service available. An indoor-outdoor lounge has fire pits and retractable storefront windows.

The retail store is off the dining room, reachable through a display of candy hearts, which contains more than 50 types of sweets on a floor-to-ceiling candy wall.

Food
Sugar Factory covers brunch, lunch, and dinner, with burgers, pastas, entrees, salads, desserts, and colorful rainbow dishes. Popular menu items include:

Flaming Hot Cheetos Burger, an 8-ounce Angus burger topped with Flaming Hot Cheetos, pepper jack cheese, pickles, lettuce, tomato, crispy onions, chipotle mayo, and served on a brioche bun coated with Flaming Hot Cheetos dust
Black Angus Filet Mignon, served with mashed potatoes, green beans almondine and garlic herb butter
Chicken or Shrimp Fettuccine Alfredo with garlic, butter, cream, parmesan, and Romano cheese
Salmon with a Yukon gold mashed potatoes, grilled asparagus, and bacon herb sauce
Black Angus Filet & Lobster Surf and Turf
Big Cheesy Angus Burger topped with melted white cheddar, creamy mac & cheese, bacon, and BBQ sauce on a toasted potato bun.

A seasonal item for November will be the Gobble Gobble Insane Milkshake topped with a slice of pumpkin pie.

Sweets
Guests can inject a pop of color into their dessert order with Sugar Factory's Insane Milkshakes, which are lavishly decorated and served in chocolate-covered mugs. Favorites include Giggles Snickers Milkshake, Princess Make A Wish Milkshake, and the Campfire Spiked S’Mores Milkshake.

A fondue with warm milk chocolate is served with toasted marshmallows, strawberries, bananas, cheesecake bites, red velvet cake, gummy bears, and brownie bites.

But their most legendary dessert is the King Kong Sundae, which serves up to 12 people and features 24 scoops of ice cream covered with sprinkles, gummy bears, caramel sauce, fudge sauce, giant whirly pops, and sparklers.

The bar
The restaurant's elevated white marble bar seats provide full-menu service, with signature smoking cocktail goblets like the Lollipop Passion, garnished with lollipops and candy necklaces; and the Watermelon Patch featuring Pitbull’s Voli 305 Vodka and sour watermelon gummies.

Other celebrity-stamped goblets include:

The Rock’s Soul Man with his Teremana Tequila
50 Cent’s Candy Shop with Branson Cognac
Mamitas Hurricane made with Mario Lopez’s Casa Mexico Silver Tequila and Brody Jenner’s Mamitas Seltzer
Travis Scott’s Strawberry Hustle with Cacti Spiked Seltzer
Bruno Mars’ Watermelon Piña Colada and Mai Tai made with SelvaRey Rum
Nick Cannon’s Big Clouds Goblet
Snoop Dogg’s Tropical Fruit Punch made with his Indoggo Gin
Nick Jonas and John Varvatos’ Strawberry Cadillac Reposado Margarita made with Villa One Tequila

Events
To celebrate the grand opening, Sugar Factory Dallas is bringing in the big names with two celebrity events, open to the public.

November 5 at 9 pm will be a D set from comedian, rapper, actor, and TV personality Nick Cannon, currently oh-so buzzy as the host of The Masked Singer. The red-carpet action starts at 8 pm.

November 13 at 9 pm will be a DJ set from Sugar Factory’s official DJ, Pauly D, American television personality and one of the stars of MTV show Jersey Shore.

Sugar Factory Dallas will be open Monday-Thursday 11 am-12 am; Friday 11 am-1 am; Saturday 10 am-1 am; Sunday 10 am-12 am. For reservations, call 469-382-5737.

More Sugar Factory locations are opening in Houston and San Antonio in December 2021.

openings

Dessert News

Acclaimed pastry shop Le Reve to open in Dallas' Mockingbird Station

Le Reve

Pastries at Le Reve look good and taste good, too.

A dessert shop with an avid following is opening at Dallas' buzzy Mockingbird Station: Le Rêve Gelato & Pâtisserie, a highly regarded shop in North Dallas' Preston Valley Shopping Center, is opening a location at 5321 E. Mockingbird Ln. #135, in the former Milk and Honey ice cream shop which closed in 2025.

Le Rêve is from Andy Pham, a baker and entrepreneur whose carefully crafted pastries and gelato have earned him much acclaim and made him a social media star.

He's hoping to open the shop sometime in late March or early April.

Pham started Le Reve as a cottage business before opening the first shop in 2022.

"I love French pastry and the European style of baking," Pham says. "I'm Vietnamese, but my grandparents had a French connection and I grew up with an exposure to French culture."

Whether macarons or pastries, his work is both tasteful and visually stunning. And his gelato — in flavors such as pistachio, French lavender, and Vietnamese coffee — is now sold not only at his shop but also by the pint at Central Market stores.

He does a variety of French pastries such as eclairs, small cakes, and Insta-friendly confections whose appearance is perfectly fabricated to match the flavor; for example, a lemon citrus pastry that looks exactly like a lemon. It's reminiscent of shokuhin sampuru, a Japanese tradition of creating plastic replicas of dishes.

Le Reve pastries L’orange et Citron Jaune at Le Reve.Le Reve

Pham's fame and acclaim includes landing a spot on the list of top 10 pastry chefs in Dallas at CultureMap Dallas' 2022 Tastemaker Awards, as well as a list of top 10 desserts.

Le Reve was also selected to participate in a national promotion in 2024 to hype the anniversary of cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants — one of 100 restaurants across the U.S., including 10 restaurants around Dallas, called on to do their own take on a Krabby Patty, the cartoon's signature dish.

Le Reve's entry stood out not only because it was the rare dessert participant, but also for its crafty execution, using sweet ingredients to mimic burger components: vanilla sponge cake bun, pineapple patty, crêpe lettuce, strawberry mousse tomato, puff pastry sticks for fries, and strawberry ketchup.

Opening a second location was part of his longterm plan, and when the space opened up at Mockingbird Station, it was an opportunity he couldn't turn down.

"I've always been a fan of the area, and Mockingbird Station seems like a perfect place for Le Reve," he says.

He's currently outfitting the space, which will get its own unique decorative theme.

"The first store was my recreation of a classic French patisserie, but this will be inspired by the south of France, with warm tones and a Mediterranean design," he says.

There will be seating, so that customers can sit and enjoy a sweet along with his trademark Vietnamese coffee featuring specialty Vietnamese arabica coffee beans.

Le Reve croissant Supreme croissant from Le ReveLe Reve

The sweets lineup will be similar to the menu at the North Dallas location, incorporating a major expansion he's undertaken in recent years: viennoiserie, aka croissants, including the ultra-trendy "supreme" croissants that are shaped like a wheel and often capped with icing.

"When I opened the first store, it was all new and I wanted to keep things manageable," he says. "Croissants are their own category, and it was important to me to do them well. I have family in France — my aunt and cousin would never let me live it down if I did a bad job. But viennoiserie have become a vital part of what we do now."

He's been warmed by the reception he's received from natives of France.

"I've gotten to know some of the French population in Dallas, and it makes me happy when they tell me that what we're doing reminds them of home," he says.

openings ice-cream desserts