It Begins With A V
Dallas fine-dining restaurant Fearing's embraces 2018's hottest trend
One of Dallas' most fine-dining restaurants is going all in on what is anticipated to be the hottest dining trend of 2018: vegetarianism. Fearing's, the impeccable restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton Dallas, has introduced a new all-vegetarian menu for lunch and dinner, allowing diners to savor menu favorites with vegetarian preparations.
The new menu offerings include vegetarian renditions of some of the restaurant's signature dishes, as well as new dishes from chef/partner Dean Fearing.
Vegetarian and vegan foods have been at the top of the list for trend-watchers for the past couple of years, and continue to enjoy increased popularity and sales. The latest forecast from Baum & Whiteman, a New York industry consultant, predicts that in 2018, plant-based dining will go mainstream.
Offering vegetarian options is nothing new for Fearing's, which has had a vegetarian menu, available on request, since 2013. The restaurant also does vegan versions of its vegetarian dishes, eliminating animal products such as eggs and cheese.
But the restaurant, which earned the No. 1 spot on CultureMap's Top 100 restaurants in Dallas, is placing greater emphasis on the options, and developed some new recipes. The new vegetarian menu features four starters and four main courses, as follows:
- Dean’s vegetarian tortilla soup
- Gem wedge salad with Heirloom cherry tomatoes and cornbread croutons
- Corn tamale with cumin/jícama salad and crispy blue corn taco
- Elote-style street tacos with jalapeño jack cheese
- Mexican sampler with spinach/jalapeño ranchero enchilada, butternut squash taquito, avocado fries, and chile lime corn gratin
- Ricotta gnocchi with oyster mushroom ragout, heirloom carrots, and burnt orange emulsion
- Sesame sticky noodles with stir-fry vegetables, tempura asparagus, and shiitake mushrooms
- Roasted Romanesco steak on apple/fennel purée with papas bravas, olives, Marcona almonds, and sherry-poached golden raisins
"I felt that vegetarian guests deserved an option that meets their dietary requirements, but that also offers more just a couple of starred vegetarian items on a main menu," Fearing says.
Thus they've created a standalone selection of meat-free starters and main courses. "We spent a long time perfecting these recipes so that they really do offer a true taste of Fearing's," he says.
