Department Store Dining

The 2 Dallas restaurants where reservations are now impossible to get

The signature popovers of the Zodiac Room

Photo courtesy of Lisa Crossett

If you're one of those people who wants dearly that which you cannot have, then this is your moment, as there are two restaurants in Dallas right now where you cannot get a reservation.

In a weird and bittersweet cosmic convergence, they're both located inside fashion retailers.

Cafe Dior by Dominque Crenn is the just-opened restaurant inside the new Dior boutique in Highland Park Village.
Zodiac Room is the about-to-close restaurant inside the storied downtown location of Neiman Marcus, the luxury department store.

Their lack of availability is for opposite reasons. Cafe Dior is new and buzzy. Zodiac Room is about to close. That means there are limited seats and a scramble to get them.

Cafe Dior by Dominique Crenn
Cafe Dior is the fashionable new restaurant located inside the recently-opened Dior store at 58 Highland Park Village, with a menu overseen by Michelin star recipient chef Dominique Crenn.

Dior cafes in general have a buzz of their own — there are a limited number of exclusive cities with Dior cafes that include London, Paris, Miami, and Tokyo.

And each location has a distinction: "Monsieur Dior," the nickname for the cafe in Paris, walking distance from the Champs-Élysées, is a tourist destination unto its own. The Dior Cafe in Tokyo has a tie-in with French pâtissier-chocolatier Pierre Hermé.

The distinction at the Dallas cafe is having Crenn, a brand-name chef whose accolades include coming in at No. 10 on Robb Report's 50 Most Powerful People in American Fine Dining, as well as James Beard Awards and appearances on TV shows including The Next Iron Chef, Chef’s Table, and Top Chef France.

She's devised a menu said to be inspired by Dior dress designs. Regardless of inspiration, you'll find department store cafe classics such as a chicken salad sandwich and the obligatory consomme. The cafe also hosts an afternoon tea with its own menu of sandwiches and desserts.

The reservation situation: The cafe's official opening date was announced as February 22 — but they actually opened oh-so-quietly on February 19, and Dominque herself was in town to oversee the opening. Reservations can be made on Seven Rooms, beginning February 23 — but there are no open tables through April. (This info comes from a staffer; the Seven Rooms site is kind of a cluster.)

Zodiac RoomZodiac Room

Zodiac Room
The Zodiac Room is the storied restaurant located inside the Neiman Marcus store in downtown Dallas, which is sadly closing due to a landlord dispute.

The closure is a loss for downtown as well as the end of a socio-cultural institution — "so central to the legend and history of Dallas that it's hard to imagine the city without it," as one former employee said — "a store that was always more than a beautiful place to shop."

Neiman Marcus got hit hard by the pandemic but reopened in August 2020. The Zodiac Room, however, remained closed for more than a year after that, before reopening in 2021. (Other downtown dining legends like the French Room have yet to fully recover.)

The Zodiac Room was one of the city's most venerable restaurants, with its modern take on old-world glamour: warm, inviting, elegant, in a store with all those same traits and more. The historical significance of Neiman Marcus to Dallas surely played a role in the Zodiac's perennial appeal. But so did its delicate menu featuring puffy popovers with strawberry butter, cool mandarin orange souffle with chicken salad, and its complimentary cup of consomme — its preservation of a genteel, slightly Southern civility that's increasingly hard to find.

When CultureMap Dallas introduced its very first list of the 10 Best Restaurants in Dallas in 2013, shortly after the site launched, the Zodiac Room was of course one of the 10. The Zodiac was always a frontrunner for ladies who lunch, for where to take your out-of-town guests during the holidays. And it stayed au courant, exploring cuisines such as vegan, while paving the way for an entire category of department-store cafes — including newcomers like Cafe Dior.

The reservation situation: The store will close on March 31, and the Zodiac Room is entirely booked up until that date. (Half Price Books has a copy of the 2014 Neiman Marcus Cooks cookbook, if you want to try making those popovers yourself.)

closings openings

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