Where to eat

Where to eat in Dallas right now: 10 restaurants to take holiday guests

The Mexican

The December edition of CultureMap's monthly Where to Eat feature almost always follows the same theme: Where to take your out-of-town guests, coming in for the holidays and ready to try the local favorites.

For 2022, the list is broken down into categories to make the selection process even easier, from where to eat if you're on a budget to where to go if you're looking for the big splurge.

Here's where to eat in Dallas right now:

Best spot for tourists
One of the best places to take tourists is downtown Dallas, with city streets you can walk, buildings to ogle, parks to linger in, and don't forget Dallas' No. 1 tourist attraction: the Grassy Knoll. Downtown also has plenty of good restaurants, from hotel eateries to streetside pubs. But Cafe Momentum is the only one with a nationally-recognized program to help at-risk youths, letting you dine out finely and do a good thing, perfect for the holidays. Led by founder Chad Houser, the menu features chef takes on homey dishes like braised rabbit pasta, shrimp bisque, Black Bean Rollatini with vegan cashew queso & fried corn, and their signature dish, smoked fried chicken with mashed potatoes & collard greens.

Best spot for serious foodies
If awards are your benchmark, then Carte Blanche, the fine-dining restaurant on Greenville Avenue, wins hands-down. No other Dallas restaurant has earned 5 stars from Forbes Travel Guide as well as the coveted AAA Five Diamond designation. It's not just about the resume. These awards tell you that Carte Blanche knows how to execute with leading-edge cuisine, ingredients, preparation, service, and atmosphere. They're open for dinner, and their quintessential meal is a 12-course chef's tasting for $225, with courses like smoked boar empanada with sweet potato and collards. But they'll also do six- and four-course versions and even a vegetarian option. The cherry on the sundae is that, in the mornings, they're a bakery (with an award-winning chef) that is making the best pastries and doughnuts in Dallas right now.

Best to grab a drink and a snack
There'll be sometimes when you're not up to a full spread and instead just want to sit and have a small bite. Preferably with a drink. You are after all saddled with guests. Ellie's, the elegant restaurant at the Hall Arts Hotel, fits the bill: It has craft cocktails, a good wine list, an upscale yet comfortable atmosphere, plus bar snacks like eggplant dip with lavash crackers. Its location in Dallas' Arts District is also a plus: near the museums such as Dallas Museum of Art and the Nasher Sculpture Center, which out-of-towners might want to see, not to mention its own collection of murals and sculptures on site.

Best outdoor space
Dallas' weather makes al fresco dining viable even during winter, something that out-of-towners adore, and everyone these days has some kind of outdoor space. But it's hard to find a prettier patio in Dallas than Fearing's, at the Ritz-Carlton Dallas hotel. It's an expansive courtyard with a variety of seating - benches, comfy couches, bar seats, regular tables & chairs - plus nicely landscaped greenery, fountains, a cozy fireplace - altogether more special when you consider its in-city location, an oasis in an urban area, sunny during the day, sultry at night. On top of all that, your guests will get to eat buffalo tacos, Southwest Caesar salad, and other amazing food by Dean Fearing, one of Dallas' very best chefs.

Best for a big splurge
The stereotypical splurge in Dallas is a steakhouse which is why The Mexican, the luxe restaurant that opened in Dallas' Design District in March, is such a blessing. The restaurant is spearheaded by Monterrey businessman Roberto Gonzalez Alcalá, whose family owns Mission Foods, and is a highly mounted enterprise that spares no details. There are steaks, if you must, and seafood, but with Mexican-style sauces, as well as non-Tex-Mex offerings like lobster enchiladas, roasted cauliflower in a truffle-habanero pistachio dressing, and a Mexican twist on a chopped salad. The decor is its own reason to go, with gorgeous Mexican tilework, ceramic fixtures, and picturesque outdoor patios featuring landscapes from the region.

Best on a budget
Tacos are a food group that fit the bill when you have a tightwad in tow: It's generally well-made food at fast-food prices. One of the most interesting local purveyors is Taco Ocho, a doting family-owned chain with four locations: Richardson, Frisco, Flower Mound, and McKinney. Their menu of tacos, tortas, quesadillas, tostadas, and nachos often spotlights refreshing Latin flavors and ingredients such as black beans instead of humdrum pinto, and a sandwich like the Cusco torta with Peruvian steak layered with potatoes. A sandwich with potatoes, how cool is that. They're also fairly healthy-ish, with great salads and vegan options, including a cool vegan breakfast taco with scrambled chickpeas. They have margaritas, and full service, and nothing is over $15.

Best vegan
More places are offering vegan options, but Dallas also boasts a full-on Vegan Dining Experience at Belse, the plant-based restaurant that opened in downtown Dallas in 2021. Located on the ground floor of an office building behind the Majestic Theater, Belse comes with a California connection: It's a spinoff of Little Pine, a famous vegan restaurant founded in L.A. in 2015, and boasts some of its award-winning dishes. There are sweet potato empanadas, cauliflower tostadas, flatbread with Italian sausage, a patty melt on toasted marble rye, and an irresistible pasta with chick'n in a pumpkinseed pesto. Most vegan restaurants in Dallas fall under Mexican, Asian, or diner-y junk food, making Belse's casual sophistication next level.

Best choice for the hot new thing
"What's the cool new place?" is a question I'm often asked, right before people decide they wanna go to the place they were already thinking about after all. Nonetheless, the answer to that question right now is El Carlos Elegante, a newly opened Mexican restaurant from Duro Hospitality Group (The Charles, Sister, Cafe Duro) located in the Design District. The menu is structured into intuitive categories of Cold, Grill, Vegetales, and Masa, and features intensely intriguing dishes such as a ricotta tamale with mole negro, ohmigosh. Duro is also known for its drop-dead decor, and El Carlos does not disappoint with gorgeous textiles and natural materials including lots of imported Mexican tile and stone.

Best place for big groups
Large parties are the bane of any server's existence, they take up way too much time and attention, and they always undertip. But Pepe & Mito's Mexican Cafe, the popular and long-running Tex-Mex restaurant in Deep Ellum, gamely rolls with the punches: pushing tables together, coming back again and again to replenish the chips, bring another round of strong margaritas, even tolerantly fielding requests for separate checks. The food's good with nachos, combination plates, spinach enchiladas, and the beef tacos Norteños and Mexican meatball soup featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. If Guy Fieri liked it, that'll definitely impress guests.

Best for coffee and dessert
The perfect place when you've had a meal and want to cap it off, or are craving something sweet, or just want a well made espresso is San Martin Bakery & Restaurant, a concept Guatemala that opened in Uptown Dallas in 2018. It's a spacious, highly cosmopolitan place with a cool bakery where you gather your pastries yourself into a little basket, and the selection is amazing, with all sorts of pastries, cakes, decorated cookies, dulce de leche cookie sandwiches, breads, strudel, empanadas, eclairs, cinnamon rolls, tarts, Napoleons, shortbreads, apple cake, guava-cream cheese pie - the only thing more incredible than the breadth and quality of their offerings is the price. This stuff's crazy cheap. Their facade is back a bit from McKinney Avenue but they have their own parking lot, making for a convenient and relaxed stop.

bests where-to-eat

Eco Warrior News

Dallas restaurants doing amazing little things for the environment

Southwest Airlines

Cute bamboo cup from Southwest Airlines

One unfortunate legacy left by the pandemic has been a huge increase in the use of plastics — setting back progress that was being made pre-pandemic.

Plastics are bad. They harm everything they touch: the environment, health, food security, and economies. But they're convenient, subsidized, and in some cases necessary.

Before the pandemic, a growing awareness had started to snowball regarding the negative impact of plastics, particularly plastic straws and single-use plastic containers — and it was significant enough to make the plastics industry very nervous.

"In the two years leading up to the pandemic, the public backlash against plastic was a major concern for industry leaders," says a story about plastics and the pandemic in The Guardian. "As a corporate executive remarked during an industry event early in 2019: 'We need to get the image of plastic in oceans out of the public’s mind. Otherwise, we could lose our social license to operate.'"

But then the pandemic came along, igniting mass hysteria about contagion, and suddenly, bans on single-use plastics that had been in the works were reversed in countries around the world: North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

“Overnight, plastics went from public enemy No. 1 to consumers asking for everything to have as much packaging as possible and to be single use," said one gleeful analyst for Shell Oil, who are a major plastics player.

The urgency of the plastics situation remains invisible to most people, lined up at the drive-thru for their coffee or Chick-Fil-A, piling up nearly 250 pounds of plastic waste every year. (That's what the average American amasses — more than any other country.)

But there are brave, pro-environment efforts being made by Dallas companies and organizations, big and small.

La Casita Bakeshop cup Revolutionary compostable cup at La Casita Bakeshop.Facebook

Dallas efforts
The Dallas restaurants and organizations listed below have taken steps to fight waste, even though it costs them money.

Plastic Free Lunch Day is November 22
Dallas ISD’s Food and Child Nutrition Services will participate in Plastic Free Lunch Day on November 22, to help reduce the amount of single-use plastic in school cafeterias.

Plastic Free Lunch Day was started by middle school students in Brooklyn. The initiative was such a success that it was adopted by all New York City public schools in 2022. The concept has since spread to public schools across the country — including Dallas ISD, which was the first in Texas to participate, when it joined up in 2022.

It creates an opportunity to educate students and the community on ways to positively impact the environment, including skipping plastic. Dallas school cafeterias will replace the plastic items they regularly use during lunch with biodegradable alternatives. (Plastic cutlery, cups, and straws will be available upon request for the crybabies.)

Southwest Airlines bamboo cup
Southwest Airlines Co., the Dallas-based airline, has introduced a new bamboo cup for inflight cold beverages, and a wood stir stick in place of a plastic stick. The airline expects the new items to reduce its inflight single-use plastics by more than 1.5 million pounds annually.

In July 2024, Southwest transitioned to a paper overwrap for its napkins made from 100 percent post-consumer recycled materials — fully eliminating plastic from this service item. The airline is making an effort to eliminate single-use plastics from inflight service by 2030.

La Casita Bakeshop compostable cups
La Casita Bakeshop, the award-winning bakery and cafe operation, recently debuted fabulous new cups that are 100 percent compostable, soil- and marine-biodegradable, breaking down naturally after 90 days. and are made from natural materials.

"We are always trying to find ways to be more environmentally friendly and this is a big way we can," they said in their post announcing the new cups. "We just want to be proud of our paper trail and being a restaurant it's hard to do that."

Smoothie King biodegrable cups
Smoothie King, the Dallas-based smoothie chain, previously used styrofoam cups, but began testing a biodegradable cup in 2019. They now offer it as the default choice. They're using Vio Foam, specially made cups that biodegrade 92 percent in four years. They'll still accommodate whiny selfish customers who insist on getting a plastic cup instead, but their Vio foam cup not only helps the environment, it also keeps their smoothies cold a little longer.

Kate Weiser Recycle Box Program
Kate Weiser, the Dallas chocolatier, sells its gorgeous eye-catching bon-bons in a variety of boxes, from 4 pieces all the way up to 35 pieces. (OK, they'll sell them individually, too, but who goes to a chocolate shop and buys a single chocolate?) They have a program where you can bring your empty box to the store and get a refill and get 5 percent off. (Weiser amusingly calls it a "secret hack.")

Dude Sweet Chocolate freezer packaging
Dude Sweet Chocolate, the Oak Cliff chocolatier, has a next-level campaign in which they will accept cold-ship packaging you've received in the mail and re-use it. Say, for example, that you ordered an 8-pack of ice cream pints from Double Rainbow in San Francisco, and it arrived in a box with freezer packs and a foil liner. You can drop that packaging off at Dude Sweet's factory location at 1340 Inwood Rd., and they'll re-use it in one way or another when they're doing shipments of their chocolate.

Note: Whether you're putting it in the blue bin or the gray bin, your plastic is not being recycled. The best course when it comes to plastic, especially single-use plastic, is to not use it at all.

sustainability