Where to Eat

Where to eat in Dallas right now: 8 restaurants with new plant-based surprises

Veggies on the menu at Crown Block.

Crown Block

For the April edition of Where to Eat, CultureMap's monthly column offering recommendations on the best restaurants to try every month, we hit a category that's a perennial fave: plant-based dishes.

Plant-based is the low-key version of vegan. Both categories skip meat and animal products, but "plant-based" does it without the whole judgy element, IE cruelty to animals. Come on, who needs the guilt.

Plant-based options have recently emerged in shocking places. For example, who would expect to find plant-based dishes at a churrascuria, a concept known for its skewered meats? That's just one of the surprises on this list.

Here's where to eat in Dallas if you're seeking surprising new plant-based menu items:

Crown Block
Newly opened restaurant atop the blinky Reunion Tower in downtown Dallas has an entire standalone plant-based menu with tempting dishes including roasted cauliflower with pine nuts, pomegranate seeds, scallions, golden raisins, sumac vinaigrette, and tahini cream; Cavatalli pasta with kale, English peas, blistered tomatoes, artichoke, and Pecorino cheese; and a Roasted Vegetable Pot with cauliflower, artichokes, carrots, lipstick peppers, fingerling potatoes, sea beans, in miso & vegetable broth with toasted sourdough bread. Sides include pretzel-crusted onion rings, triple cooked fries, roasted carrots, and asparagus with cured lemon & Medjool dates. Starters include avocado aburi with horseradish, wasabi pickle, & crispy onion; avocado crunch sushi roll with cucumber, mango, & crispy puffed rice; a charcuterie board called Farmers Market Stand with roasted/pickled/fried vegetables, hummus, and smoky onion dip; and arugula-kale salad with crispy artichokes, snap peas, cured tomatoes, Pecorino cheese, & Marcona almonds.

Fogo de Chão
Churrascuria-style restaurant concept from Brazil known for its dedication to meat took the world by surprise in March with the revelation that they'd expanded their menu in an unprecedented new direction with the addition of plant-based options including tofu. Fogo already had some vegetarian dishes such as the Cauliflower Steak, but they added two new plant-based options, available for lunch, brunch, and dinner as an alternative to the full churrasco experience: Chimichurri-marinated tofu served atop black bean pasta with green onion, Napa cabbage, pickled onions, and carrot ginger-miso dressing; and power vegetable bowl with eggplant, mushrooms, zucchini, asparagus, and peppers, served with chimichurri spinach rice.

Komodo
Shiny-glamorous bar-restaurant from Miami is newly opened in the Epic building on the outer edge of Deep Ellum where its bells & whistles include a two-story space with eye-catching illuminated “bamboo” cutout columns and music from an in-house DJ. Their menu features Southeast Asian dishes interpreted with a global approach, including a full sushi bar, but they also have two incredible plant-based entrees: Wild Mushroom Lo Mein, featuring black truffle mushroom pasta, and their signature Daring Plant Based King Pao Chicken with shiitakes, bok choy, lotus root, and cashew. Daring Foods is the plant-based chicken company backed by celebrities such as Drake, and it is an amazing fake, with a grill-marked crust and a chewy meaty center. Komodo also offers an Asian twist on steakhouse-style sides such as vegetable fried rice, and Wokked Vegetables, a killer medley with bok choy, mushroom, carrot, and baby corn.

Moxie's
Moxie's is famous for being owned by Tom Gaglardi, proprietor of the Dallas Stars and brought from Canada to the U.S. by franchise group Eatz Hospitality. They have three locations in North Texas, including Uptown, Plano., and Southlake. They're sometimes lumped in to the sports bar category, but they're on the swanky side, and unlike your typical sports bar, they have some serious plant-based options including vegan pot stickers, vegan tofu lettuce wraps, a vegetarian power bowl with cauliflower rice, and a Beyond Burger.

Oomi Kitchen
Digital food hall at 3510 Ross Ave. is the first restaurant outside of South Central Texas to offer menu items from Earth Burger, an award-winning plant-based fast food chain founded in San Antonio in 2014. Earth Burger is known for its burgers made with plant-based patties, chik-n, and “fishless” filets. At Oomi, they're offering burgers such as the Ranchero topped with cheese, fried onion haystack, pickles, and BBQ ranch, plus chicken sandwiches, fries, and tater tots. Earth Burger is embarking on a national expansion with assistance from Sinelli Concepts, the Dallas group founded by Jeff Sinelli that owns Which Wich Superior Sandwiches.

Vegan Heat
New pop-up is a recently transplant from California from enthusiastic vegan chef Renee Pugh, with a menu whose options include crispy Jamaican jerk chicken breast or Jamaican oxtails, with sweet potato waffles & Southern grits; BBQ rib sliders with purple slaw, smothered mac & cheese; and green beans & rice. It's never the same since she rolls out new specials almost weekly, such as sausage lasagna roll-ups with garlic ricotta cheese, served with sweet corn and garlic bread. Stay tuned to their updates on their Instagram page. They serve dinner Wednesday-Friday, 5-9 pm, and Sunday brunch 12-3 pm. You can pull up at The Cookline, at 2011 W. Spring Creek Pkwy. #2000, or else order on DoorDash.

XOXO Dining Room and Garden
Fun gal-centric spot at 3121 Ross Ave. describes itself as a place where classic American cuisine meets pink and girly aesthetics, and who are we to argue. This temple of fuschia, magenta, crimson, and salmon comes with all sorts of rest stops and vignettes for fun photo ops, and their menu has shareable plant-based options including hummus with veggies and pita bread, and Impossible meatballs with yogurt sauce, labneh, and microgreens.

Yard House
Most of the buzz around this public house concept from Darden Concepts, with two DFW locations in Addison and Toyota Music Factory in Irving, centers on their 100-plus beers on tap, including a rotating lineup of seasonal and limited selections, delivered perfectly chilled. Less fuss is made of the fact that they have an entire dedicated Gardein menu featuring a dozen dishes made with Gardein plant-based products. There's orange chicken, Gardein Cobb salad, Gardein chicken tenders, and Gardein Nashville-style hot chicken, which you can order in a sandwich or with pancakes, a twist on chicken & waffles. There are chicken nachos, a mac & cheese studded with chicken, and a BBQ chicken pizza.

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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