“Part of the secret to success is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.” Voltaire didn’t utter that one (Mark Twain did), but the quote might apply to events at Voltaire that climaxed with the departure of lauded chef George Papadopoulos. Running rumors say…
It’s hard to not think of Arthur’s as an icon of perseverance amid the unforgiving brutality of the Dallas restaurant scene. Owner Mohsen Heidari, in addition to grappling with the constant and typical tortures of employee turnover, spoilage, government inspectors, taxes and critics, has had to deal with asbestos, bad…
Bond traders weren’t the only ones abruptly throttled by early September’s airborne spittle from hell. Food pros as well as one of the most lauded restaurant idols were also vaporized in the maelstrom. Windows on the World, that famous 40,000-square-foot feedlot in the sky perched on the 106th floor of…
Chez Gerard is a crotchety old cottage born some 17 years ago on McKinney Avenue at a time when French cuisine spelled sophistication. The restaurant has changed little since then, and a French kiss might not smack of the sophistication it once did, but that doesn’t mean Chez Gerard fumbles…
A study conducted by researchers from the Danish Epidemiology Science Center in Copenhagen has found that wine consumption may be associated with higher IQs. Not only that, but the Danes found that higher education levels, an elevated socioeconomic status and optimal functioning on personality scales and health-related behaviors were also…
Richard Chamberlain is the type of food pro who has a history studded with jewels. Starting with proletariat food training at El Centro College, Chamberlain went on to apprentice at the Mansion on Turtle Creek. He was credited with developing a cuisine christened American alpine cooking while in Aspen, was…
Zen den is a big deal. On a Monday evening when it isn’t even open for dining, a manager escorts groups of people through the passageway into the dimly lit room generously draped in gauzy curtains. “This was AquaKnox?” asks one zen den tourist in amazement. It’s hard to believe…
It didn’t take more than a couple of bites before dining at York St. got me thinking about Lloyd’s of London. Lloyd’s, founded in 1680, is the venerable insurer that was brought to the brink of ruin by asbestos litigation, among other things. It’s also the company that famously wrote…
Cabo Grande has been pushing chicken this August. Sorry to be so late conveying this PR puffery (the flier picture of a leg and thigh is very yellow), but chicken (even when slow roasted with Southwestern seasonings for $7.95) is hard to get excited about. What is interesting about Cabo…
There once was a place in Fort Worth’s Sundance Square called Ellington’s Southern Table. It wasn’t long after the place opened and it was mercilessly skewered by the reviewers (not us…we pricked it politely) that it became Ellington’s Chop House. After that, the name was edited down to Chop House,…
That Rocco’s was once Highland Park Cleaners is not hard to imagine. This tiny hut could have been little else, save for a hotdog stand or one of those mailbox places that charges you double to ship fruitcakes at Christmas. It’s easy to imagine plastic bags stuffed with suits and…
It wasn’t too long ago that Frankie Carabetta was set to operate a McKinney Avenue sports bar with his name on it. That was when Tracie Barthlow, owner of Bridges Gourmet Coffee, was his business partner. But a bitter rift and a lawsuit forced an end to that partnership. Now…
Barring a sudden Ice Age or, less likely, a burst of energy by city inspectors, Dallas likely won’t see 36° in August. It looks like the month will come and go without the opening of seafood restaurant 36, chef Chris Svalesen’s restaurant named for the optimum holding temperature of fresh…
It’s funny how people in Dallas refer to everything north of LBJ as some kind of untamed wilderness. They call it “way up north,” or “Oklahoma,” even the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But that’s just silly. Plano and its less civilized siblings Frisco and Allen aren’t populated simply with feral…
Italian Cowboy, the cartoonish Tex-Ital marvel at Spring Valley Road and Central Expressway, has conked out, or maybe pooped out. It seems Italian Cowboy owners Francesco and Jane Secchi, who also own Ferrari’s and Il Grano, noticed the premises was afflicted with the recurring odor of sewage since before the…
It’s not hard to stare across the turbid ripples of Lake Ray Hubbard and imagine romance. Lake Ray Hubbard spans 22,745 acres, so it looks like an ocean through a slightly sozzled night squint. And though Lake Ray reaches a maximum depth of only 40 feet, there is still plenty…
Sometimes Big Bowl isn’t big enough to fit all of the corn flakes that want to get in. Sometimes, maybe most of the time, they give you one of those flashing, vibrating duck calls that always seem to go off the second you get the bartender’s attention. This is unfortunate,…
Bistral Neighborhood Bistro & Bakery will shut down at the end of August, if it isn’t sold. If this doesn’t prove that McKinney Avenue is in the grips of a gustatory curse, then nothing will. Just this year, I count Mangia e Bevi, O’Dowd’s Little Dublin and now Bistral as…
Stephan Pyles almost didn’t move into his new 5,000-plus-square-foot, three-story house. It earned him two offers before construction was even completed. One anxious buyer even asked Pyles to throw out a number. He was stunned when the would-be buyer grabbed it. But the offer fell through, and Pyles had to…
The Crescent Court carcass of Phil Romano’s We Oui, his casual restaurant that was a little bit French and a little bit slutty, is poised to morph into an upscale casual New Orleans grubbery called Gumbo’s. But first the new concept owners, Austin-based Fired Up Inc., will have to tear…
I like Las Colinas. Some may think it sterile and static, but these are the shallow ones. How could you not love a 12,000-acre master-planned community that among other things is home to the world’s largest equestrian sculpture: a herd of bronze mustangs galloping across a granite stream? Las Colinas…
Grand fusses are often made of restaurant makeovers. It doesn’t matter if improvements are little more than a splash of fresh paint and a reconfigured french fry, or a new karaoke salon and a whole new chicken-fried menu, the operator will squeeze all the publicity out of if he can,…
