The Dallas restaurant formerly known as The Metropolitan Cafe has arrived: Now called The Metropolitan on Main, it's an updated eatery in the downtown space at 2032 Main St. that was previously home to The Metropolitan Cafe, and is open for breakfast, lunch, and happy hour, with dinner to be added down the road.
The concept is from Noemi Chiriac, a former customer and engineer at Raytheon who famously asked the previous owner if her mother could help cook on the café's final day of business. She bought the place to give her mother an opportunity to share some of her family Romanian recipes.
The breakfast menu includes pastries, breakfast tacos, and dishes such as the Meeker Special, a Metropolitan Café original with croissant, eggs, ham, cheese, tomato, cucumber, and scallion; Blackberry Lemon Mascarpone French Toast, the Breakfast Power Bowl with eggs, potatoes, spinach, red bell peppers, onion, tomatoes, feta, and avocado; Steak & Eggs; and Quiche Florentine and Lorraine.
Lunch features salads, panini, sandwiches, and entrees. Highlights include:
- Turkey Poblano Panini - turkey, spinach, poblano peppers, poblano aioli, and provolone cheese on sourdough
- Spicy Italian Panini - cured meats, arugula, sun dried tomatoes, brie, cherry peppers, house vinaigrette on sourdough
- Gyro Wrap - chicken, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, and tzatziki sauce in a pita
- Beet Salad - arugula, roasted beets, fried brie, candied walnuts, and a raspberry rosé black pepper vinaigrette dressing
- The Sami - panko breaded chicken with rosé vinaigrette slaw, pickled red onion, tomato, on a brioche bun
- Herb Crusted Salmon with dill cream sauce, polenta, and Brussels sprouts
The space also has a barista-manned coffee bar during breakfast and lunch, featuring a Faema espresso coffee maker. Serious!
Bar at Metropolitan on MainKayla Enright
There are fancy cocktails such as Lady in the Blue Dress with Drumshanbo gin, bergamot, crème de violet, lemon, rose; and low ABV/mocktails such as The Arboretum Spritz with creme de violette, elderflower, prosecco, and soda.
Happy Hour takes place Monday-Friday from 4-7 pm with $7 house martinis, $5 wells, $4 domestic beer, $13 signature cocktails, and $10 spritzers.
The 2,056-square foot space has been revamped with an art deco design hewing to its 1913 vintage. Here's some history: The building was originally known as the Masonic Blue Lodge Temple until 1919, then became The Western Union Telegraph Company building, where Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby received telegrams. Ruby paid a visit to the Western Union just minutes before shooting Oswald behind the building outside the Dallas courthouse.
