King Cake News

Best ways to celebrate Mardi Gras 2025 in Dallas

Dodie's on the Harbor

Dodie's

Mardi Gras, the holiday known for beads and boisterous parades, falls on March 4 this year. Its origins in the U.S. date back to 1870 in New Orleans.

The biggest day of all during the celebration is Fat Tuesday, which turns attention to food and King Cake, a colorful cake that typically has a tiny baby doll inside, a sign of luck. Though Dallas is quite a ways from the birth place of Mardi Gras, you don't have to make the trip out to Louisiana to celebrate because these local restaurants make it feel like you're already in the midst of the party.

Here's where all the Mardi Gras specials are happening in Dallas:

Bbbop Seoul Kitchen. Oak Cliff restaurant will have a menu featuring gumbo, Asian Cajun drumsticks, and classic Hurricanes. Seating is first-come, first-served. March 2.

Bread Winners. Offering specials, including Shrimp Étouffée, King Cakes, and $8 King Cake Martinis. Plus, let us take your Mardi Gras celebrations to the next level with our catering options, featuring delicious King Cakes, Cupcakes, and Mini King Cakes. Available at Allen, NorthPark, Plano, and Uptown.

Cannon's Corner. Oak Cliff Irish pub hosting their Mardi Gras parade party with food and drink specials, including hurricanes and French 75s, po'boy sandwiches, and gumbo. There will be beads. March 2, 9 am.

The Charlotte. Neighborhood bistro on Henderson Avenue offering special menu with $35 blackened red fish, $35 crawfish boil, and drinks including a hurricane and frozen strawberry daiquiri, which are $12 each. March 4, all day.

Cinnaholic. Cinnamon roll chain is offering King Cakes for $30. This shareable cake will serve eight to ten people, and can be found at Addison, Arlington, Frisco, Grand Prairie, Irving, Grand Prairie, McKinney, Mesquite, and Richardson locations. Available now through March 4.

Colombian Country Club. Offering a menu with a gumbo crafted by the chef, while mini king cakes will be placed on tables to add a traditional touch, alongside their cocktails including the Columbian daiquiri, frozen strawberry daiquiri, and the Bourbon Street Old Fashioned. Plus, there will be a special drinks menu from Aguasol, providing a dual frozen machine featuring specialty frozen daiquiris. Prices a la carte. March 4.

Dee's Table. Frisco restaurant offering special dishes including the $19 pastalaya, $16 shrimp po-boy, Bananas Foster bread pudding, and Voodoo daiquiri. March 4, starting at 11 am with live music at 3 pm.

Dodie's on the Harbor. Rockwall restaurant is hosting food and drink specials the Friday through Monday leading up to Fat Tuesday featuring $11 gator bites, $7 King Cake and ice cream, and $5 hurricanes or margaritas. They'll also have a Fat Tuesday celebration from 2 pm to close featuring live music, free beads all day, bead contest, and $3 drink specials with margaritas, hurricanes, and Miller Lite.

Eatzi's. Dallas market and bakery is offering a King Cake made with soft cinnamon-sugar dough, cream cheese filling, with a sweet icing, topped with traditional Mardi Gras colors of yellow, green and purple sugar. Pus, a toy baby is hidden inside for good luck. Available for $24 with pre-orders through March 3.

Ida Claire. Addison restaurant celebrating with menu of boiled crawfish, King Cake bread pudding, gumbo, daiquiris, and hurricanes. Prices start at $6 for food and $12 for hurricanes. During Fat Tuesday, they’ll have a mask-making station with New Orleans-inspired tunes. February 28 through Fat Tuesday, March 4 with a Mardi Gras celebration.

Jack & Harry's. French Quarter-inspired chophouse in Snider Plaza is offering a menu with blue crab gumbo, oysters St. Claude, and prime, dry-aged steaks, and French onion filet. Prices are a la carte. Featured cocktails include Bourbon Street classics like the Sazerac and Hemingway Daiquiri, plus new $9 mini martinis. March 4.

Little Daisy. The Thompson restaurant is hosting a celebration on the lawn with a crawfish boil and menu featuring jalapeño & cheddar hush puppies, green goddess potato salad, and classic king cake and pralines for dessert. There will also be limited-time cocktails including Cherry Sazeracs, Hand Grenades, and daiquiris. Tickets are $65. March 4, 6-9 pm.

Nuri Steakhouse. Uptown steakhouse hosting a Mardi Gras soiree on the Jade Terrace featuring passed hors d'oeuvres, such as crab cakes and Wagyu dumplings, and special cocktails. The event also includes live entertainment. Festive masks and attire encouraged. Tickets are $150 with a reservation. March 4, 6-10 pm.

Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen. Cajun seafood restaurant offering a menu of specialty dishes including rainbow trout Mardi Gras and New Orleans-style BBQ shrimp. Dessert features vanilla cheesecake with traditional Mardi Gras king cake, cinnamon, graham cracker crust, and crème anglaise. They'll also be offering a keepsake Mardi Gras glass with each Swampthing cocktail order starting February 28. Dining specials available February 19 - March 4.

Quarter Bar. Offering New Orleans-inspired specials, including $6 Hurricanes, $8 King Cake shots, shrimp étouffée, a shrimp and crawfish boil, and King Cakes — all set to the backdrop of live music. March 4.

S&D Oyster Company. The Uptown oyster bar will be rolling out mini king cakes— 25 of which will have a mini baby hidden inside. Guests who find a baby will get their cake for free and win a $20 gift card to return to S&D. March 4, 11 am-10 pm or until they run out.

The Star in Frisco is celebrating Mardi Gras with a bar crawl, live music, and exclusive Mardi Gras-themed cocktails. There will be food and drink specials including $5 Hurricanes and Painkillers from Tricky Fish; Marco Gras and festive beads from Monarch Stag; The “CAT5” cocktail from Snowbird Kitchen; Hurricane Shots and beignets from La Parisienne; rum runner and gumbo from The Glen; and Star Hurricane from Frisco Omni Hotel. Free admission. Menu item prices vary by restaurant. March 4, 6-9 pm.

TLC Vegan Cafe. Richardson restaurant offering a vegan Creole dinner menu featuring chicken gumbo, red beans and rice, boudin balls, Creole fried TLC, and Bourbon Street bread pudding or beignets for dessert. Reservations are available for $55 for 3-course, or $65 for 4-course. March 1, starting at 4 pm.

The Village Dallas, the mixed-use community in east Dallas is offering Mardi Gras packages to access specials at its dining spaces. Buzz and Bustle, the local craft coffee house, is featuring a Banana’s Fosters cold brew latte, mini King Cake, Muffaletta sandwich, and mango sunrise drink; Over Under sports bar is featuring red beans and rice, shrimp etouffee, and a crawfish boil, served by the pound with corn and potatoes while supplies last; and Sandy Pickle offering a beignet station, hushpuppies with remoulade, and shrimp po’boy. Tickets include Hurricane package for $25, and the Crawdaddy package for $40. March 1, 12-6 pm.

holidays

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