Big Restaurant News

Gemma’s beloved culinary couple cooks up new Dallas restaurant Sachet

Foodie favorite restaurant Gemma will welcome an olive-loving sibling in 2017.

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In major culinary news, one of Dallas' top-rated restaurants will get a sibling in 2017. Called Sachet, it comes from Stephen Rogers and Allison Yoder, owners of Gemma, the Henderson Avenue eatery beloved by Dallas foodies.

Sachet will open on Oak Lawn Avenue, in the space at the Shops at Highland Park formerly occupied by luxury linen store Yves DeLorme, which moved to a different space in the same shopping center.

Rogers says that opening a second restaurant had always been part of their plan. "We always knew we wanted to open something that was more casual and at a lower, everyday price point," he says.

Since opening in late 2013, Gemma has received countless accolades for its chef-crafted menu, doting service, Hamptons-inspired design, killer wine list, and late-night hours. It's on a short list of favorites for special-occasion dining, but it's also a destination for casual dining among the foodie cognoscenti. It nabbed the No. 2 slot on our Top 100 list of the very best restaurants in Dallas.

While Gemma has a California influence, the theme at Sachet will be Mediterranean-inspired.

"For some people, that's tabbouleh and hummus, but Mediterranean cuisine is huge," he says. "It can include Spain, France, Provence, Italy, all the way over to Greece and North Africa. We like the idea that the three main components of Mediterranean food revolve around olives and olive oil, grapes and wine, and wheat. You have pasta, couscous, and all sorts of grains. I wanted a menu that gave us the freedom to pull from all those areas and not concentrate on one area."

The name Sachet evokes not only a type of English lavender, but also has a culinary meaning. "A sachet can also be like a bouquet of herbs that you can throw into stock," Rogers says.

The shopping center has seen tenant changeover in recent years, with restaurants such as La Duni and Aurora replaced by Celebrity Cafe and Madrina. The center also houses The Mint, TJ's Seafood, and Carbone's.

Being a former retail space, the Sachet location will require that Rogers and Yoder build a kitchen. "I'm usually a second-generation restaurant shopper," Rogers says. "But we couldn't resist the fact that this is right on the corner. It's one of those things, like when you're house shopping, you see a house and you know this is it."

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READY TO ROLL

Trendy Dallas sushi bar exports its handrolls to San Antonio

Nori Handroll Bar/ Facebook

Nori Handroll Bar will make its San Antonio debut in spring 2027.

A hot Dallas sushi spot is rolling toward San Antonio: Nori Handroll Bar will open in spring 2027 in the city's historic Pearl district.

It's landing at the Coopers Row apartment complex at 1118 E. Elmira St., San Antonio.

Nori specializes in hand rolls, otherwise known as temaki, which are a less exacting version of maki — the tightly rolled cylinders most Americans associate with sushi. The seaweed sheets enclose the typical fillings of rice, fish, and vegetables, but are wrapped in a looser cone or tubular shape.

Although several San Antonio restaurants offer the dish, it doesn’t yet have a dedicated handroll bar. The Dallas restaurant is about to fix that.

Nori Handroll Bar first debuted in the Deep Ellum neighborhood in 2018. Entrepreneur Mark Lee partnered with Jimmy Park, a former Nobu chef known for Pōk the Raw Bar in Dallas’ West Village. Originally, the spot only offered 12 hand rolls.

Now under the ownership of chef Deukbok Cha, the restaurant has since extended the menu to several à la carte options stuffed with king salmon, unagi, soft-shelled crab, scallops, and other seafood. The rolls are also offered in sets, ranging from I Could Eat (three hand rolls) to Hangry (six).

Nori's other offerings include sashimi, indulgent chef’s specials like truffle caviar nigiri, and fun appetizers like poppers made with jalapeño, cream cheese, red crab, and spicy tuna. Cha has also introduced Korean flavors that reflect his heritage.

The Dallas location is modeled after the neighborhood alleyway bars found on the streets of Tokyo, offering only 24 seats. The San Antonio outpost has not yet released renderings of the space, but at 2,995 square feet, it might offer a little more stretching room than the original.

“Pearl has such an incredible food culture, and it’s exactly the kind of place we want to be a part of," says Deukbok Cha, chef and owner of Nori Handroll Bar, in a release. “We want to create a gathering place where people can stop in for fresh hand rolls and Japanese-Korean flavors that are simple, approachable, and genuinely delicious.”

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