Is Screwing Hip?

We twist open 2005 for a nip. Is this a sign of things to come?

A A A Comments By Mark Stuertz Thursday, Dec 29 2005

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Residential and urban development has sure spawned some gradual shifts. Mabel points out that McKinney Avenue used to be a spot for edgy, upscale dining in the days of Alberto Lombardi's Le Rendez Vous (now Breadwinners), Sfuzzi (Alberto Lombardi's Bizu before the building went vacant) and Clive & Stuarts Island Cuisine (now Idle Rich Pub). Now, because of the rich residential influx along McKinney, the forces governing cuisine along the strip are convenience and mainstream selection: burgers, salads and sandwiches. One example: the transition of Jean-Michel Sakouhi's Severine's Bar and Le Paris Bistro (later Figaro Café) to Uptown Bar & Grill and Urbano Paninoteca (Sakouhi moved Severine's to Southlake).

"Dallas is a big parochial city in the throes of transition to becoming a national city," says Simon, ticking off transplants like Nobu from New York and the upcoming opening of Bice, a restaurant-lounge out of Milan, in the former Gumbo's/We Oui space. "Obviously part of that process is a cultural shift." And that shift is fueled by the constant and unrelenting sophisticating of tastes until it reaches the point where all you really want is a piece of fried chicken--free-range, organic fried chicken with heirloom French fries, that is.

Steve Satterwhite

Is fusion dead? It will outlast the wine cork if Stephan Pyles has anything to do with it.

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And that was 2005: a year of painstakingly trying to unravel and simplify our mounting sophistication, even as high-rise luxury condos blossom under your feet. And who wouldn't want to unscrew to that?

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