This week in gluttony

These are the 13 best food and drink events in Dallas this week

This is the week for pumpkin-shaped pizza.

Photo courtesy of Chuck E. Cheese

Halloween week brings several opportunities for spooky sips and bites, from a Halloween-themed omakase dinner to a murder mystery dinner. (There’s even pumpkin-shaped pizza and edible slime on the menu this week.) This week also brings an inaugural fall beer festival, an all-you-can-eat party at an Italian market, and a 110^th anniversary of a treasured Dallas hotel. Save room for a dumpling festival by week’s end.

Monday, October 24

Fall-O-Ween Beer Dinner at Lazy Dog
All locations of the American casual pub and restaurant will offer a four-course beer pairing dinner inspired by fall flavors now through Wednesday. Highlights from the menu include butternut squash soup, chicken pot pie, and butter cake. The menu is $85 for two and includes a four-pack of craft beers for sharing. Reservations encouraged.

Wednesday, October 26

Libertine Bar Pumpkin Carving Contest
Popular Greenville Avenue bar is hosting a pumpkin carving contest from 4-8 pm, with tarot card readings from Katie Mae Darling. $20 gets you a pumpkin and a beer. Winners get gift certificates to the Libertine. Judging takes place at 8 pm. 214-824-7900.

Krupp Brothers Keg Release at Sixty Vines
The Crescent Court restaurant is the exclusive home to a newly kegged wine varietal from Krupp Brothers. Called Stone Stitch, the Cabernet Sauvignon will be served during this wine tasting experience paired with chef-curated bites. The $75 ticket includes five wines and a pairing menu of fried chicken and caviar, savory beet tart, pizza, porcini-crusted petite tenderloin, and cherry chocolate truffles. The event starts at 6 pm.

Thursday, October 27

Halloween Omakase at Kessaku
There’ll be some spooky surprises during this Halloween-themed, multi-course sushi and sake experience, which will take place atop the 50^th floor of The National building downtown. Reservations are $250 per person, plus tax and gratuity, and the dinner begins at 6 pm. Cocktails are included. Note that reservations typically sell out.

Friday, October 28

Boo-Tacular at Chuck E. Cheese
There’s only one place to find pumpkin-shaped pizza in DFW this weekend, and that’s any location of the kid-favorite Chuck E. Cheese. The longtime family-friendly entertainment destination and pizza joint is serving a menu of Halloween-themed items, including pumpkin-shaped pepperoni pizza with a Jack-O-Lantern face along with cookies, cupcakes, and Dippin’ Dots topped with edible green slime. Kids can dance with Chuck E. Cheese himself at 6:30 pm, 7:30 pm, and 8:30 pm nightly and get free candy, and those who arrive in costume can get 10 free play points with any games purchase. Don’t miss the costume contest at 6:30 pm Friday through Sunday – all participants get 50 free e-tickets and the lucky winner gets 500. Fun fact for parents: select locations of Chuck E. Cheese have craft beer on tap.

All You Can Eataly: Fall for Dallas
For one night the marketplace at Eataly will be closed to the public for an all-inclusive tasting event. There’ll be more than 50 wines to try, a dozen-plus bars with cocktails and beer, and more than 30 food stations led by guest chefs and Eataly chefs featuring hundreds of artisanal Italian bites. Even more, outside there’ll be live music, chef demos, and a Halloween costume contest under the big event tent. VIP tickets are $195 and include early access at 6 pm and a dedicated VIP lounge with a selection of premium Italian wines. General admission is $125 with entry at 7:30 pm. (7 pm entry is sold out.)

Bishop Arts Brew Fest
This inaugural two-day fall festival – which has an adults-only day and family-friendly day – will feature beer sampling, live music, food demos & tastings, cocktails, games, and a costume contest. On Friday the event will run from 5-11 pm and only those 21-and-up are permitted. Don’t miss the bus serving Sotol samples – it’s a spirit made from a relative of the agave plant. On Saturday the event will run from 2-6 pm and feature food trucks, face painting, a petting zoo, and more live music. Admission is free, but beer samples are available via a $30 Brew Fest Pass that’s good for 10 samples and a souvenir mug.

Saturday, October 29

Lowest Greenville Fall Fest
Hang out on Lowest Greenville for a fun-filled day of food and drink. Adults must purchase a $10 commemorative Lower Greenville Collective glass between 11 am-2 pm at Greenville Avenue Pizza Co, 1923 Greenville Ave. This serves as a ticket to beer, wine & cocktail samples, and drink discounts. There's also trick-or-treating for the kids. Participating businesses include Greenville Avenue Pizza Company, Joy Macarons, Son of a Butcher, Bullzerk, Meyboom Brasserie, Sams Club, Swizzle, HG Sply Co., Leela’s, Libertine, and more.

Murder Mystery Dinner at Bourbon & Banter
Spend Halloween weekend solving a 1920s mafia marriage murder mystery paired with a four-course dinner from Bourbon & Banter. Dress the part to add to the fun – think zoot suits, flapper dresses, feather boas, and fedoras. Menu items include deviled eggs, pumpkin consommé, pan-seared red snapper, and red rum pumpkin hand pie. Tickets for two are $160 and do not include alcohol. The dinner will run from 7-10 pm.

Spell On You: Dine & Drink at Commons Club
There’ll be tricks, treats, potions, and palm readings during this immersive dining experience at the Commons Club inside the Virgin Hotels Dallas. Tickets start at $150 per person and include two “potions” from a specialty cocktail menu, food stations, a personalized tarot card reading, and entry to the hotel’s Spell on You: Halloween Party at The Manor. Dinner will run from 7-10 pm and party will go on until 2 am.

110^th Anniversary Gala at The Adolphus
Opened in 1912, The Adolphus will celebrate 110 years with an entertaining evening of music, cocktails, champagne, and hors d’oeuvres. Musical entertainment will take guests on a trip through the decades, and the event will take place in the hotel’s iconic French Room. Tickets are $150 per person, plus tax and service charge, and the cocktail attire party will run from 8 pm-midnight.

Sunday, October 30

A “Titanic” Afternoon Tea Experience at The French Room
This year marks the 110^th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic in the North Atlantic Ocean, and The Adolphus will honor the ship’s memory with an elegant afternoon tea with live music. The menu will include items from the Titanic’s own tea service that was available in first class. The $85 ticket, plus tax and service charge, includes two courses, two artisan tea pairings, and a glass of champagne. Reservations are available from 11 am-3 pm. Hats and gloves encouraged in Titanic-era fashion.

Momo Festival
A popular Nepali street food, a momo is a dumpling filled with meat or vegetables. Try them in wide-ranging variety during this festival dedicated to the delicacy. Taking place at Levitt Pavilion Arlington, the event will feature at least a dozen restaurants and food vendors serving not only momos but other Nepalese cuisine available for purchase. There’ll also be bars, family-friendly entertainment, and DJ music. Admission is free with online registration and the event will run from 2–10 pm. Dogs are welcome on a leash.

news-you-can-eat chefs dinner

Bread News

Plano bakery and pizzeria Bread Street Boys has some amazing bread

Bread Street Boys

German rye-wheat bread at Bread Street Boys

There's a hot loaf in town for Dallas bread fanatics thanks to Bread Street Boys, a bakery on the east side of Plano at 2710 S. Rigsbee Dr. #A, that's doing amazing breads, pizzas, and sandwiches.

Bread Street is a mom & pop from husband-and-wife Yury and Tatiana Stark, who are bringing an old-world, authentic style of sourdough bread that harkens to what they grew up with in Eastern Europe.

Their menu includes sourdough bread, Italian white, German rye-wheat, ciabatta, and focaccia, along with sourdough pizzas, which they sell from their east Plano bakery.

German rye
Their signature and best-seller is the German rye-wheat, an epic bread with a crust that's crisp but not too thick, and a crumb that's moist and chewy — a perfect contrast of textures. The bread has enough artisanal style to please bread snobs but not so heavy that it will scare off those intimated by a thick crust.

Rye bread generally has a darker color and dense texture, but Bread Boys mixes in wheat flour to create a softer texture yet still retaining rye's distinctive malty flavor.

"Our rye bread is especially popular among Eastern Europeans who grew up with it and miss it from their childhood," Tatiana says. "That's a big part of our story — we both moved here from Belarus where good natural bread is a part of almost every meal, and we couldn't find anything like that here. Yury and I would spend time with our grandparents during summer break, helping make bread from scratch, and we missed that quality and flavor."

How they met
The couple has a sweet story. They knew each other when they were young, but Tatiana's family moved to the U.S. in 2000 when she was 14. They kept in touch over the years and realized they were meant for each other.

"He moved here eight years ago, and we got married and had two kids," she says.

Yury has an entrepreneurial streak so they founded the bakery in 2022, with Tatiana leaving her corporate job to form the quintessential mom & pop.

They built the bakery in a former warehouse from scratch — it took them nearly a year — and then went door-to-door offering samples of their bread. It can now be found at gourmet grocery stores such as Jimmy's Food Store, European Delicatessen Too in Plano, Kuby's Sausage House in Snider Plaza, and Georgia's Farmers Market in Plano. (A full list of where to buy their bread is here.)

Bread Street Boys pizzaBread Street Boys

Pizza
The pizzas were a natural offshoot. They make their crust with sourdough, which adds a complexity and toasty quality, elevating it from your everyday pie, in varieties such as pepperoni, margherita, BBQ chicken, veggie, and capricciosa topped with ham, artichokes, tomatoes, and mushrooms. Prices range from $17 to $20.

"Like our breads, our pizza crust dough incorporates a sourdough starter," Tatiana says. "There's a common misconception that sourdough means it's sour, but it's really about natural fermentation, which not only creates a better flavor, it also makes it more digestible and nutritious."

The fact that sourdough is naturally leavened — with no preservatives or dough conditioners, nothing artificial — is important to them, and they also use unenriched flour.

"I care a lot about nutrition, especially for children, and we try to eat as healthy as possible," Tatiana says. "One of our dreams is to bring our bread to local schools."

The pizza can be ordered online, and Bread Street is partnered with delivery services, but Tatiana says that many customers like to drop in.

"A lot of our customers stop by and pick it up — it's kind of a glamorous hole in the wall — I guess they find it charming," she says.

Sandwiches
Their latest adventure is a line of sandwiches made on their house bread, which they sell at the Dallas Farmers Market.

"We're at the Dallas Farmers Market every weekend when the shed is open," Tatiana says. "We sell our bread there, and it's the only place where we've been selling the sandwiches. We do some unusual combinations like the Breadwinner, a sweet-and-savory sandwich with turkey, lettuce, bacon, a spread with grated cheese and pecans, and peach preserves which adds an interesting kick. People love them, so we're going to start selling them at our bakery."

The name
The name "Bread Street Boys" has a certain attitude but also weaves in a few elements, some personal.

"'Bread Street' nods to old European streets where bakeries were the heartbeat of the neighborhood — places where bread was made daily, by hand, with skill passed down through people," Tatiana says. "'Boys' reflects our energy behind the bakery: a fun, tight-knit, and hardworking crew of bakers."

Also, when they were teenagers, the Backstreet Boys were popular.

"We used to know those songs by heart, but without knowing a thing about what the words said," she says. "We liked the idea of giving the name a little pop-culture wink — kind of where old-world bread meets modern spirit."

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