Fish & Chip News

Ex-Princess Di chef launches Dallas food trailer with British fish & chips

Fish & chips and mushy peas from Winston's.

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There's a new mobile food operation in town doing authentic fish & chips. Called Winston's British Fish N Chips, it's a spinoff of a concept founded in Vancouver, Washington, but one with local ties: One of the partners is chef Darren McGrady, who now resides in Plano but was famously the former personal chef to Diana, Princess of Wales.

Winston's is a food trailer - different from a food truck - and it specializes in fish & chips, along with other authentic British foods including:

Fish N Chips + Mushy Peas
Fish N Chips + Curry Sauce
Steak & Ale Pie + Chips
Cornish Pasty + Chips
Sausage Roll + Chips

The fish & chips feature cod in a thick crunchy crust, with "chips" (fries) cut thick in an authentic manner. Steak & ale pie, a classic pub dish, comes in a buttery crust. Prices are $13 to $16.

Winston's was founded by Timothy Johnson, a Vancouver-based entrepreneur who remembers a fish & chips startup from his childhood in Portland.

"It was called Enry Beazley's Fish and Chips, and they had the most incredible food that everybody went crazy over it," Johnson says. "I always thought about how it impacted the city and hoped to do the same with a very authentic version of fish & chips."

"In my research, I kept coming across Darren McGrady, who was running his catering company, and contacted him about being a partner," Johnson says. "This is someone who cooked at Buckingham Palace, so you know it's going to be made properly."

They launched in Vancouver in March.

"It was an absolute smash," Johnson says. "We were so heavily inundated with traffic, with people wanting to try proper British fish & chips, from the exact same recipes he used to serve the royal family, kings and queens, at Buckingham Palace. It's not just food to fill your belly - we are delivering a cultural experience."

Expanding to where McGrady lived seemed the logical thing to do. They're starting with a weekend stand on Saturdays at the Cottonwood Market in Richardson, which they hope to eventually extend into seven days a week.

"In Vancouver, most of the mobile food operations are food trailers but here it's food trucks," Johnson says. "Some cities do not have any ordinance in place for food trailers. We're waiting for Richardson to amend that so that we can set up at Cottonwood Market every day."

Meanwhile, they also have a deal with a company that owns malls such as the Windhaven Plaza at 3305 Dallas Pkwy. in Plano and the Preston Valley Shopping Center at 12817 Preston Rd. in Dallas, where they'll also set up shop. Using words we've used many a time, you can follow them and track their whereabouts on Instagram.

"We have the world's best steak & ale pie, and pretty soon we are going to add desserts, including Princess Diana's most treasured dessert," Johnson says. "She was once recorded saying, 'No one in the world makes bread & butter pudding as good as my chef Darren.' We'll also do some tarts and we're hoping to do scones with clotted cream - as authentic as what Darren served to the Queen every day."

Johnson says he recently investigated his ancestry and was delighted to learn that he and Princess Diana crossed paths, both sharing a great-great-great ancestor 10 generations ago.

"So we can truthfully say that Winston's is from Princess Diana's cousin and her former personal chef," he says.

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Tex-Mex News

Get Tex-Mex and bargain margs at Alexander's Cantina in North Dallas

A Mexican restaurant with a killer happy hour has debuted in North Dallas: Alexander's Cantina & Cocina, a family-owned restaurant and bar, has opened at 4805 Frankford Rd. #105, a space most recently occupied by Casa Don Luis Tex-Mex and before that, a Corner Bakery.

Alexander's is a bigger-and-better spinoff of Alexander's Mex Cuisine, a restaurant opened in Plano in 2023 by Bernardo Garduño and his family, featuring Tex-Mex and street food from his hometown Mexico City.

Garduño worked for many years in the service industry before coming to Dallas in 2015. He crafted Alexander's menu by drawing on his restaurant experience, along with recipes from his mom.

Signature dishes include:

Pambazo — Mexican bread dipped in chili sauce, filled with potatoes, chorizo, and queso, then fried
Alambre — steak, ham, and bacon with onion, peppers, and cheese
Bistek a la Mexicana — steak tips, onion, and bell pepper simmered in a spicy tomato sauce until it turns into a stew

Other crowd-pleasers include chicken mole, brisket tacos, birria, fajitas, enchiladas, and more. They have a big selection of seafood including tacos with salmon and coconut shrimp, plus vegetarian options such as veggie fajitas and spinach enchiladas. One favorite extra: Their chips come not only with salsa but also black bean dip.

The new location has given them room to grow in a way they were unable to do in Plano, Garduño says.

"Plano is doing very well but that location is small, and there was no room to expand," he says. "We did extensive renovations at the Dallas location that included the addition of a bar, as well as room for parties and entertainment, like salsa on Fridays and Saturdays."

The menu at the two locations is basically the same but Dallas has a few new dishes such as mojarra frita, a whole tilapia fried and served with rice, plus carnitas, and a few more tacos, he says.

One item they recently dropped: soft-serve margaritas. Garduño was quick to jump on that early 2026 trend, and Alexander's made many a "soft-serve margarita" list, but the trend turned out to be short-lived.

"It did well for a month, but people went right back to regular margaritas," he says. "Those drinks are fun but they're very sweet. The mix has to be highly sugared in order to get the texture correct. The ingredients and equipment to make it were expensive, which meant we had to charge more for it — $16 as opposed to $10 for our regular margaritas."

Garduño has kept an eye on the trend. "We're not the only place no longer doing it," he says.

Besides, it was not a good fit with Alexander's generous happy hour, featuring $5.50 house margaritas, $6 flavored margaritas, and $4 beer, available from 11 am-6 pm every day at the Plano location, and Sunday-Thursday at Dallas.

"Our happy hour has become one of our trademarks," he says.

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