Victory Park News
Sultry Southern restaurant Velour to debut at Dallas' Victory Park
Korean sticky ribs at Velour
An upscale restaurant serving Southern-inspired and global cuisine with a vibrant dining experience is coming to Dallas' Victory Park: Called Velour, it'll open at 665 High Market St., taking over the space vacated by the sadly departed Enrique Tomas tapas bar.
According to owner Cary Thompson, it'll open this fall with an elevated dining experience, open for lunch and dinner, serving a menu featuring Southern and global cuisine.
“We started with Southern cuisine as the blueprint, and then we mixed it with some Asian, Spanish, and European influences,” Thompson says. “It just blends it all together, we call it 'a fluent cuisine,' but the base is always Southern."
That means everything from lobster benedicts to blackened fish over succotash; from oysters rockefeller to dip-your-own strawberries in chocolate.
Signature dishes will include chicken and caviar — "items you don’t really see paired together," Thompson notes — as well as a Korean-style sticky rib plate with an Asian slaw.
"It has that Southern, deep smoke flavor, but still has an Asian zest," Thompson says. "Fusing those items together, we thought, would be spot on."
At the helm in the kitchen is chef Omar Larson, who previously held stints at Kessaku and The Italian Job.
“We needed a driving force — a chef that could really push that envelope, but also someone who could keep it simple,” Thompson says. “Sometimes when you get away from being so trying to reinvent the wheel, you scare your guests away.”
They'll keep prices in the mid-range, offering dishes with a lot of bang for the buck such as a 6-ounce filet with a garlic-pepper crust, as well as extended happy hours.
Thompson is a trained chef himself who studied at the Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts, had his own catering company, and worked front-of-the-house, as a server and in management, as well.
The cocktail program will be mapped out by Eric Simmons, also from Kessaku, and will offer premium spirits, with a number of different kinds of old fashioneds and martinis.
“We want to shy away from doing the traditional martinis that everybody does,” Thompson says. “No shade to it, but I think for us, we're going to find a way to be different but still the same.”
They lucked out by inheriting Enrique Tomas, who left behind some nice appointments, although they've given the space a dark and sultry makeover. They'll play "soft tunes" throughout the restaurant, and also host DJs on select nights.
“I think it’s going to be intriguing and delicious all at the same time,” Thompson says.
