A new restaurant doing a tasting menu only is coming to Dallas' Design District: Called Punk Noir, it'll open at 139 Turtle Creek Blvd, #130, Dallas, TX 75207 with a twenty-course tasting menu and an immersive, multi-room design — smashing the conventions of fine dining, as a press release so articulately states.

Led by James Beard Award–winning chef RJ Cooper and general manager and Level II Sommelier John D’Alexander, the restaurant will combine "world-class cuisine, irreverent artistry, and edgy elegance."

Owners are Dallas natives John McKeel and his sons Cole and Clay McKeel, who conceived the project as a passion project.

“Punk Noir is a rebellion against the ordinary,” Cole McKeel says in a statement. “What initially inspired us to open this concept were our personal experiences traveling across the USA, Europe, and Japan. We’ve eaten at many Michelin-starred restaurants, even some ranked among the Top 50 in the world. So many of them had amazing food, but the experience often felt flat—stiff, quiet, and even intimidating. We wanted to create something different: food that is just as refined and world-class, but an experience that is unforgettable, irreverent, and full of energy."

Punk Noir — which is no relation to Punk Royale, a similar-sounding European concept founded in Stockholm in 2015 that has since opened spinoffs in Copenhagen and Oslo — will be in a 9,500-square-foot warehouse where it will host two to three seatings per night, with only 26 seats per seating.

The space will incorporate:

• a dramatic communal dining room with projection-mapped visuals and graffiti art led by a “Mistress of Ceremonies”
• an open kitchen where Cooper presents select courses to an intimate neon-lit dining room
• the Noir Lounge, which will seat 46 guests and offer cocktails alongside “mini tasting” menus for those not partaking in the full experience

A VIP car service option will also be available, chauffeuring guests directly to the restaurant in a black SUV and delivering them up a private ramp and into the restaurant where they will be escorted to the first room to begin the immersive dining experience.

The food
The experience will consist of a 20-course tasting menu that weaves together global influences, cutting-edge gastronomy, and Cooper's personal inspirations. The release says that diners can expect courses that are "playful and provocative—some just a single bite, others layered with theatricality and multi-sensory touches."

Ingredients will feature seasonal highlights from Italy, Japan, Central America, and closer to home. Each course will be paired with wines, cocktails, and zero-proof beverages.

The chef
RJ Cooper won a James Beard Award for Best Chef Mid-Atlantic in 2007. His prior concepts include Rogue 24, serving a 24-course tasting menu, in Washington, D.C.; Gypsy Soul, a Southern bistro; and Saint Stephen and Acqua in Nashville. He previously worked at Vidalia in D.C. for seven years and has earned national press.

The manager
General Manager and Level II Sommelier John D’Alexander previously worked at Everest by Chef John Joho, Sixteen by Chef Thomas Lents, Grace by chef Curtis Duffy, and Les Nomades by Rolland Liccioni, where he earned the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence twice.

The owner
John McKeel shares his and his sons' vision for Punk Noir: “It is irreverent fine dining. The lounge has punk graffiti wall art and unrestrained departure from the familiar. We are here to challenge the norms of traditional fine dining, turn the Dallas dining scene on its head. We are disruptors. We are here to challenge our guests' conventions of what elevated dining should be. We provide an experience that is surprising, provocative, entertaining, and delicious."