Where to Eat Now

Where to eat in Dallas right now: 10 best new restaurants for December

If you've seen our master list of new restaurants opening around Dallas-Fort Worth, you know that these are good times for diners, with dozens of new spots coming soon.

If you like to be absolutely au courant, then you've come to the right place. Below is our list of the newest restaurants that have opened their doors:

C. Señor
Walk-up stand in the former El Padrino space in Oak Cliff sells flavorful street food, including tacos, burgers and Cuban sandwiches. There's nothing ordinary here — not even the burger, which is griddled with a squirt of homemade adobo ketchup to give it caramelized crust. A Cubano taco has pork and ham with a mango-jicama-cilantro pico and melted Swiss cheese.

Clark Food & Wine Co.
Greenville Avenue restaurant from one-time Mansion chef Randall Warder does American cuisine with European touches. Close your eyes and picture yourself in Spain or Italy, with a menu of brisket meatballs, chicken liver mousse, smoked catfish dip, flatbreads, cheese boards, vegetable boards, charcuterie plates, artisan sandwiches and salads.

Eureka
High-end California burger chain is opening in the 3700M complex at West Village on December 8, with 40 craft beers on tap; a modern yet rustic atmosphere; and a menu that includes osso buco "riblets"; a burger with bone marrow porcini butter; breakfast burrito with flat iron steak, potatoes and fried egg; and butterscotch rum pudding sprinkled with sea salt for dessert.

Henry's Majestic
Restaurant in the old Acme F+B space features an unusual collaboration between Bread Winners Cafe and chef Roe Dileo, who gained fame with her recent appearance on Gordon Ramsay's Hell's Kitchen. The menu features charcuterie, rotisserie chicken, meatballs, burgers, pho, and a brunch with Bread Winners-style dishes such as black cherry French toast.

Modmarket
The best of the new healthy chains, Modmarket — "modern" plus "market" — is a Colorado newbie that's cheaper and tastier than the rest. The menu includes appetizing sandwiches and salads such as mixed greens with chicken, feta and almonds. Pizzas such as the exceptional bianco with spinach, tomato, basil and roasted garlic can be ordered in whole or half versions, in whole-grain or gluten-free crust options. Flower Mound and Plano are open now, with Southlake and Preston Hollow still to come.

Neighborhood Services
Chef Nick Badovinus hits Addison, with the same robust flavors and sassy attitude as the original on Lovers Lane and the NHS Bar & Grill in North Dallas. Pastas are made by hand, and in keeping with Dallas' current obsession with aged meat, there are steaks aged for up to 60 days. Appetizers come cold, like oysters on the half shell, or hot, like the sticky spare ribs with pineapple teriyaki.

Oso Food & Wine
New restaurant from Michael Cox (Mi Cocina, Star Canyon) resides at the prized intersection of Preston and Forest where it promises to be the neighborhood restaurant everyone wants to have. The menu is, loosely, Mediterranean, with delicacies such as bacon-wrapped dates and pork chop Milanese. Chef Kelly Hightower is rolling out dishes such as crispy chicken liver fra diavlo on polenta with honey-glazed bacon.

Pho Kitchen
NorthPark Center is the new home for Vietnamese native Tuyet Davis, previously of La Pagode, East Wind and Lemongrass Asian Bistro in Deep Ellum. At Pho Kitchen, she's doing a minimal menu with Vietnamese classics, including two kinds of pho (chicken or beef), plus banh mi sandwiches, noodle bowls, and sweet rich iced coffee and iced tea.

Righteous Foods
Fort Worth chef Lanny Lancarte hit reset for this healthy-focused restaurant in the old Alta Cocina space, putting him in step with the current healthy wave hitting Dallas via chains such as Seasons 52, LYFE Kitchen and Modmarket. Open for breakfast, lunch and early dinner, Righteous does unique grains, salads, tacos with freshly caught shrimp, juices and coffee from Portland's famed Stumptown.

TNT Tacos and Tequila
Hip young sibling of Blue Mesa Grill is now open in the Quadrangle, following branches in Austin and San Antonio. The menu is described as "modular," with tacos such as spicy Buffalo chicken, burritos, salads and sides. Choose your filling from options such as chimichurri beef, pulled pork and a vegetarian category featuring fried artichoke hearts. Margaritas come in all fruit flavors, breakfast is served all day and the brunch is as bountiful as Blue Mesa's.

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Catfish dip at Clark Food & Wine Co.

Photo courtesy of Clark Food & Wine Co.

Catfish dip at Clark Food & Wine Co.

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Spring Arrival

West Dallas gets new Spanish-Peruvian restaurant with big-name chef

Photo courtesy of Ulloa's

Paella will be on the menu.

A new restaurant with a high-profile culinary director will bring Spanish and Peruvian flavors to West Dallas: Called Ulloa’s, it is coming to 727 Fort Worth Ave., with a projected opening in March 2027.

The concept is from philanthropists Susan and Woodrow Gandy, who were previously investors in the historic Belmont Hotel just around the corner. They've teamed up with Dallas celebrity chef Kent Rathbun as culinary director, along with Christopher Tunnell as general manager to lead the front of the house.

Rathbun is a name Dallas diners know well, with a resume that includes The Mansion on Turtle Creek, the Landmark Restaurant at the historic Melrose Hotel, Seventeen Seventeen at the Dallas Museum of Art, Abacus, Jasper's, Rathbun’s Blue Plate Kitchen, and more. He's won numerous awards and made multiple appearances on Food Network. He was most recently behind the launch of On The Rocks, an Italian bistro in Burleson.

Chef Kent Rathbun will be the culinary director of Ulloa's. Photo courtesy of Kent Rathbun

Tunnell’s background spans both culinary direction and front-of-house operations. He worked at Los Angeles hot spots Ketchup, Geisha House, and Les Deux, as well as the Mandalay Bay and The Mirage in Las Vegas, before moving to Dallas to open The Mexican, the upscale restaurant in the Design District.

“I am truly excited to partner with Chef Kent Rathbun, whose reputation is amazing — not only in the DFW Metroplex, but in the culinary world,” Tunnell says. “He has been with this project since the beginning, helping develop it; this will be a very chef-driven, culinary-forward restaurant.”

The team's vision for Ulloa’s is both culinary and urban, with hopes of anchoring the corridor and attracting other businesses to Fort Worth Avenue — a stretch connecting downtown Dallas with Oak Cliff that remains somewhat underdeveloped despite its panoramic skyline views.

The restaurant is named for Spanish explorer, astronomer, and scientist Antonio de Ulloa, who spent extensive time in the Mexican peninsula before becoming Louisiana’s first governor. During his travels, Ulloa documented a fogbow — a circular rainbow formed when sunlight meets mist that causes silhouettes standing between the sun and fog to appear ringed in light, a phenomenon known today as “Ulloa’s Rings.”

That vibrant phenomenon inspired both the restaurant's identity and logo. The concept promises "bold, worldly flavors in a welcoming neighborhood setting inspired by exploration and discovery,” the owners say.

Ulloa's Rendering of Ulloa's.Rendering courtesy of Ulloa's

While the menu remains in development, Tunnell describes the culinary direction as “Spanish soul with a Peruvian heart.” The kitchen will merge the coastal flavors of both traditions — ranging from paellas and ceviches to crafted cocktails and signature adaptations by Rathbun.

The 200-seat, two-story space will feature a downstairs dining room, a large bar, and an outdoor patio. Upstairs, plans call for a secondary bar, a private dining room, a patio, and an expansive balcony patio, offering views of the city's skyline and of the Margaret Hunt Hill and Margaret McDermott bridges.

While the upstairs space will be available for private events, the owners intend for it to operate primarily as an organic extension of the main restaurant. The buildout will include a guest elevator along with ample parking, including both self-parking and valet options.

The team says the restaurant will have have an aesthetic that's “warm, theatrical, generous, elegant but alive, with the energy of a great Spanish tapas bar and the soul of Peruvian hospitality.”

Ulloa’s plans to launch with dinner service first, followed by lunch and weekend brunch.

restaurants bars peruvian flavors west dallas oak cliff kent rathbun