Tastemaker Awards

These 10 Dallas bars are nominated for 2024 Tastemaker Awards Bar of the Year

Cocktails from Ruins Deep Ellum.

dallas.culturemap.com

Raise your glass for the 2024 CultureMap Tastemaker Awards, our annual celebration honoring the best in Dallas food and drink, where we nominate industry pros for awards in categories like Bar of the Year.

Each year, we honor nominees with a special editorial series before an awards ceremony, where we reveal the winners, as voted on by a panel of past winners and culinary experts.

This year, the ceremony will be held May 16 at the Fashion Industry Gallery, and tickets are on sale now. There’s a limited number of discount Early Bird tickets for $60 or $99 for VIP (includes early access to the event, valet, and a dedicated bar). Prices increase March 31.

Contenders across the food & beverage industry have been nominated in the following categories: Restaurant of the Year, Chef of the Year, Bar of the Year, Pastry Chef, Bartender, Best Wine Program, Best Patio, and Best New Restaurant, the only category determined by readers in a bracket-style online tournament.

We've already toasted nominees for Rising Star Chef and Neighborhood Restaurant, and now we're covering Bar of the Year: the 10 bars that impressed most in the past 12 months.

These are the nominees:

Columbian Country Club
Elegant martini lounge in east Dallas is inspired by the original Columbian Country Club, a historic Jewish country club on Main Street in downtown Dallas that closed in 2004 after 100 years. The newcomer imitates the essence of New York City’s golden era with an old-world glamor, piano player, and a variety of martinis with flavors like apple and espresso. The club also features an extensive selection of champagne, red wine, and white wine, by the glass or bottle.

Double D's
Design District lounge is a partnership between This and That Hospitality (High Fives, The Whip, Tiny Victories, Alice, Dibs on Victory, Ferris Wheelers) and bar pro Jermey Elliott, of Parliament and Milkshake Concepts fame (and nominated for Best Bartender in 2023). The bar has a '70s aesthetic, homey and welcoming, with lots of wood and neon and plants. Drinks menu features cocktails on draft, plus signatures like Good Morning Dallas (patron, DD’s coffee mix, vanilla agave, and orange).

Grapevine Bar
Beloved dive bar founded in 1996 as a place for everyone, from prom queens to drag queens relocated in 2023, but went to great lengths to recreate the casual, worn-in atmosphere of the original. The new location has a rooftop deck, basketball court, patio, and happy-hour specials on drinks such as their ultra-potent Tangaritas, frozen margarita mixed with Tang. This is their second Tastemaker nomination, following a nomination for Best Bar in 2023.

LadyLove Lounge and Sound
Bishop Arts lounge has a hip atmosphere with walls lined with vinyl records and record-listening nights where you "BYOV," V for vinyl. It’s from David Grover and Kate Siamro, the same team who own Spinster Records, the vinyl record store in Bishop Arts. Meant primarily as a listening lounge inspired by the ‘70s, their menu is concise, with a small selection of cocktails and tapas-style bites.

Revelers Hall
New Orleans-style bar and music venue in Bishop Arts is perfect for drinks and dancing. The dance floor features music from all genres but especially jazz. If your dancing works up an appetite, they’ve got a small menu of flatbreads, cheese & charcuterie boards, and dips.

Ruins
Equal parts bar/restaurant and live music venue, Ruins in Deep Ellum is known for its big personality, with colorfully morbid art, a large patio, and friendly staff. The menu celebrates Mexican agave spirits and Latin American brandies with tropical cocktails, while the food spotlights Mexican cuisine with Oaxacan twists, plus dishes from across Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.

Tina's Continental
Intimate retro-inspired bar with a car theme in the historic Continental Gin Building in Deep Ellum is the place to go for a cozy vibe and a good martini. The menu features six martinis as well as an option for customers to build-their-own, plus other classic cocktails. This spot might be better for a comfy date night over a big girls night out — at merely 800 square feet, it seats just over 40 people.

Tiny Victories
Neighborhood lounge from hospitality group This & That Co. (High Fives, The Whip, Tiny Victories, Alice, Dibs on Victory, Ferris Wheelers) offers well-crafted cocktails at a not-outrageous price, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, such as the $7 house shot, with vodka, strawberry, lemon, and “bad decisions.” The tiny space has an unpretentious atmosphere, with cozy seating and stylish decor, plus an outdoor patio. This is Tiny Victories’ second Tastemaker nomination, following a nomination for Best Bar in 2020.

Whiskeys
In-the-know gem just outside Fair Park is a favorite of service-industry folk and insiders. True to its name, the bar offers hundreds of top-shelf whiskeys and bourbons that are sure to stun both whiskey experts and beginners. If you’re overwhelmed by the options, they offer whiskey flights to get a taste of several. The atmosphere is upscale yet unpretentious, fostering a sultry atmosphere with dark decor and soulful music.

Wriggly Tin
Bar-restaurant with craft beer, cocktails, patio, and pizza opened in November 2023 in a Quonset hut near Fair Park. It's an eclectic space with trinkets from around the world, plus a glass wall ideal for watching sunsets. The menu is simple, with 14-inch New York-style pizzas, and beer made on-site by Small Beer Works, a brewery founded by Jacob Boger and Aaron Garcia, who previously owned Small Brewpub in Oak Cliff. (Boger is no longer involved with Wriggly Tin, nor is opening chef Desmon Coleman.)

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