Places to go, things to eat

Don't miss the 11 best food and drink events in Dallas this week

Chef Tiffany Derry

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The busiest time of the year for restaurants is nearly here with holiday parties on the horizon. This week is already startin to ramp up, with festivals and pairing dinners featuring special guests. Visitors include a Brooklyn brewmaster, a Houston chef, and a prestigious California winery co-founder. And there's a weekend-long chef festival featuring some TV-famous name chefs.

Wednesday, November 6

Brooklyn Beer Dinner at Meddlesome Moth
Highly decorated brewmaster Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery will visit Meddlesome Moth in Dallas to showcase his craft brews during a six-course pairing dinner. The James Beard Award winner will guide guests through the experience, which will feature a lager, pilsner, pale ale, golden ale, brown ale, and chocolate stout. Highlights from the Creole-inspired menu include crawfish-stuffed okra, gumbo, tenderloin with whiskey sauce, and beignets with fig jam and lavender honey. Tickets are $125, including tax and gratuity, and dinner begins at 6:30 pm.

Thursday, November 7

Farm-to-Table Dinner & Rooftop Movie Night at DiveDWN Future Farm
DiveDWN Future Farm is Dive Coastal Cuisine’s chef Franchesca Nor’s sustainable farming project that partners with 4DWN, a skateboarding destination, to serve the community. Together they’ve launched a new rooftop movie series that comes with a chef-driven dinner. Held on Thursdays, the event includes the movie and a choice of Dive’s signature chicken wrap, veggie and rice bowl, or a farm salad with an optional add-on of chicken or salmon. Cocktails, beer, wine, popcorn, and candy are also available for purchase. Bio-Dome is the featured flick this week, and the series will run through December 19. Tickets are $50 and doors open at 5:30 pm for a 6:30 pm movie start.

Cooking Class and Three-Course Dinner at Gorji
Chef Mansour Gorji will teach his techniques for a three-course New Mediterranean dinner, including his award-winning steak, while guests dine and observe. The meal will be paired with Burgundy and Bordeaux wines. Reservations are $195, plus tax, and the event begins at 6 pm.

Krupp Brothers Wine Dinner at Al Biernat’s North
Dr. Jan Krupp, co-founder of Krupp Brothers Winery, will be in attendance during this four-course wine pairing dinner at Al Biernat’s North. Krupp Brothers rose, chardonnay, red blend, cabernet sauvignon, and syrah port are all on the menu along with dishes like filet mignon with peppercorn sauce, shallot-butternut squash ravioli, and pecan and coconut chocolate cake. Dinner is $195, plus tax and gratuity, and begins with an opening reception at 6:30 pm.

Transcendent Wines 4-Course Wine Dinner at The Landmark Prime Rib
Located inside The Warwick Melrose Dallas, The Landmark Prime Rib will host a pairing dinner featuring eight wines under the Transcendent portfolio. Menu items include scallops, winter greens salad, prime rib with truffle mushroom risotto, and honey bourbon chocolate cake. Dinner is $125, plus gratuity, and begins at 7 pm.

Friday, November 8

Drifter Dinner Series at Quarter Acre
The final installment in Quarter Acre’s guest chef series features Aaron Bludorn of Houston seafood destination Navy Blue. Bludorn will collaborate with Quarter Acre chef Toby Archibald on an eight-course dinner with specialty pairings. The $495 price includes tax and gratuity. Seating times available from 6–8 pm.

Saturday, November 9

Dallas Brew Festival
Taking place at Old City Park, this sip-and-stroll tasting event will feature more than 60 breweries with 200 beers. The $50 ticket includes all beer samples along with live music and lawn games. Food trucks will be on-site. The event will run from 2–5 pm, or pay $65 for early admission at 1 pm.

Shef Food & Wine Festival — Grand Lawn Tasting
Three-day festival running from November 8-10 is spearheaded by Dallas celebrity chef Tiffany Derry and has it all: food events, cocktails, live concerts, pickleball tournament, and more. It starts with a kickoff dinner on Friday night (which is sold out), then picks up all day Saturday with wine tastings, whiskey experiences, expert panel discussions, and a tasting on the Grand Lawn at Epic Central in Grand Prairie, featuring chefs from across the U.S. plus wines and spirits. A GA ticket is $175 and gets you unlimited food, drinks, and music, from 5-9 pm. A VIP ticket gets you early admission at 4 pm with access to the VIP Epic Lounge (Indoor Lounge), with premium bar service, and exclusive meet & greet.

Sunday, November 10

Recipes for Reducing Food Waste at Eataly
Too Good to Go, touted as the world's largest marketplace for surplus food, will partner with Eataly at Northpark Center to host a hands-on cooking class aimed at fighting food waste. The menu includes scratch-made orecchiette pasta along with uses for leftover bread, including bread, egg, and cheese balls simmered in tomato sauce, and a cake made with stale bread and chocolate. The $85 price includes prosecco upon arrival. Class will run from 12–2 pm.

Shef Food & Wine Festival — Mimosas and Matinee with Carla Hall’s One-Woman Show
Chef Carla Hall first won over audiences when she competed on Bravo’s Top Chef, then spent seven years co-hosting ABC’s popular lifestyle series The Chew. She's currently featured on the Food Network in shows such as “Thanksgiving, Holiday and Halloween Baking Championships” (judge), and “Worst Cooks in America.” This afternoon of entertainment will take place at The Epic in Grand Prairie in an intimate 200-seat venue. Tickets are $99, and it will run from 12-4 pm.

Monday, November 11

Tokyo Nights at Musume
The second in the upscale Japanese destination’s three-part event series, “Tokyo Nights” is inspired by Japan’s bustling culinary scene after dark. Taking place from 8 pm–midnight, the restaurant transformation will feature on-theme cocktails from mixologist Gabe Sanchez and an eight-dish dinner menu from local chef Rodman Shields, with items like beef tallow fries, bao bun cheeseburgers, and hand rolls. All menu items and drinks are $9 each. While the event is geared toward those who work in the service industry, Tokyo Nights is open to all guests.

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Eco Warrior News

Dallas restaurants doing amazing little things for the environment

Southwest Airlines

Cute bamboo cup from Southwest Airlines

One unfortunate legacy left by the pandemic has been a huge increase in the use of plastics — setting back progress that was being made pre-pandemic.

Plastics are bad. They harm everything they touch: the environment, health, food security, and economies. But they're convenient, subsidized, and in some cases necessary.

Before the pandemic, a growing awareness had started to snowball regarding the negative impact of plastics, particularly plastic straws and single-use plastic containers — and it was significant enough to make the plastics industry very nervous.

"In the two years leading up to the pandemic, the public backlash against plastic was a major concern for industry leaders," says a story about plastics and the pandemic in The Guardian. "As a corporate executive remarked during an industry event early in 2019: 'We need to get the image of plastic in oceans out of the public’s mind. Otherwise, we could lose our social license to operate.'"

But then the pandemic came along, igniting mass hysteria about contagion, and suddenly, bans on single-use plastics that had been in the works were reversed in countries around the world: North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

“Overnight, plastics went from public enemy No. 1 to consumers asking for everything to have as much packaging as possible and to be single use," said one gleeful analyst for Shell Oil, who are a major plastics player.

The urgency of the plastics situation remains invisible to most people, lined up at the drive-thru for their coffee or Chick-Fil-A, piling up nearly 250 pounds of plastic waste every year. (That's what the average American amasses — more than any other country.)

But there are brave, pro-environment efforts being made by Dallas companies and organizations, big and small.

La Casita Bakeshop cup Revolutionary compostable cup at La Casita Bakeshop.Facebook

Dallas efforts
The Dallas restaurants and organizations listed below have taken steps to fight waste, even though it costs them money.

Plastic Free Lunch Day is November 22
Dallas ISD’s Food and Child Nutrition Services will participate in Plastic Free Lunch Day on November 22, to help reduce the amount of single-use plastic in school cafeterias.

Plastic Free Lunch Day was started by middle school students in Brooklyn. The initiative was such a success that it was adopted by all New York City public schools in 2022. The concept has since spread to public schools across the country — including Dallas ISD, which was the first in Texas to participate, when it joined up in 2022.

It creates an opportunity to educate students and the community on ways to positively impact the environment, including skipping plastic. Dallas school cafeterias will replace the plastic items they regularly use during lunch with biodegradable alternatives. (Plastic cutlery, cups, and straws will be available upon request for the crybabies.)

Southwest Airlines bamboo cup
Southwest Airlines Co., the Dallas-based airline, has introduced a new bamboo cup for inflight cold beverages, and a wood stir stick in place of a plastic stick. The airline expects the new items to reduce its inflight single-use plastics by more than 1.5 million pounds annually.

In July 2024, Southwest transitioned to a paper overwrap for its napkins made from 100 percent post-consumer recycled materials — fully eliminating plastic from this service item. The airline is making an effort to eliminate single-use plastics from inflight service by 2030.

La Casita Bakeshop compostable cups
La Casita Bakeshop, the award-winning bakery and cafe operation, recently debuted fabulous new cups that are 100 percent compostable, soil- and marine-biodegradable, breaking down naturally after 90 days. and are made from natural materials.

"We are always trying to find ways to be more environmentally friendly and this is a big way we can," they said in their post announcing the new cups. "We just want to be proud of our paper trail and being a restaurant it's hard to do that."

Smoothie King biodegrable cups
Smoothie King, the Dallas-based smoothie chain, previously used styrofoam cups, but began testing a biodegradable cup in 2019. They now offer it as the default choice. They're using Vio Foam, specially made cups that biodegrade 92 percent in four years. They'll still accommodate whiny selfish customers who insist on getting a plastic cup instead, but their Vio foam cup not only helps the environment, it also keeps their smoothies cold a little longer.

Kate Weiser Recycle Box Program
Kate Weiser, the Dallas chocolatier, sells its gorgeous eye-catching bon-bons in a variety of boxes, from 4 pieces all the way up to 35 pieces. (OK, they'll sell them individually, too, but who goes to a chocolate shop and buys a single chocolate?) They have a program where you can bring your empty box to the store and get a refill and get 5 percent off. (Weiser amusingly calls it a "secret hack.")

Dude Sweet Chocolate freezer packaging
Dude Sweet Chocolate, the Oak Cliff chocolatier, has a next-level campaign in which they will accept cold-ship packaging you've received in the mail and re-use it. Say, for example, that you ordered an 8-pack of ice cream pints from Double Rainbow in San Francisco, and it arrived in a box with freezer packs and a foil liner. You can drop that packaging off at Dude Sweet's factory location at 1340 Inwood Rd., and they'll re-use it in one way or another when they're doing shipments of their chocolate.

Note: Whether you're putting it in the blue bin or the gray bin, your plastic is not being recycled. The best course when it comes to plastic, especially single-use plastic, is to not use it at all.

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