When Voltaire opened in 1999, it was billed as one of the most expensive restaurants ever devised in the city of Dallas. Owner Scott Ginsburg never disclosed the total cost, but it most certainly ran into the several millions considering the chandelier by famed lighting designer Ingo Maurer valued at…
Not so very long ago, the Burning Question crew created quite a disturbance at Paris Vendome. Geez. Invade France, nothing happens. Send them Jerry Lewis films, they just beg for more. Ah, but sip an aperitif after dinner and they explode in dismay. “In Europe, every drink has its meaning:…
Not everything Phil Romano touches turns to gold. We Oui slipped off the landscape on a trail of French kitsch greased with red lipstick. Lobster Ranch got caught in a chowder undertow. Eatzi’s nearly succumbed to a vicious bite by the Big Apple. But gold isn’t what’s important. What’s important…
Call it Shakespeare in modern garb. Over the past several years, Hollywood presented us with Othello set on a high school basketball court, Hamlet wandering the aisles of a Blockbuster store, Romeo and Juliet cowering from the prying lenses of security cameras and Prince Hal wandering the streets of Portland…
The name Noodles Kitchen is a jarring composite of a plural and singular noun. It sounds more like a culinary lair for a Dick Tracy nemesis than a peddler of doughy strands. The décor takes that tiny jar and amplifies it: art deco new age Asian contemporary with a huge…
It’s no surprise that a North Texas bedroom community would turn a California fascination into a viable business. After all, California is the American birthplace of dreams, fantasy and personal computer wizardry. Everyone wants to touch its gloss, to be a part of its vanguard, to have a grab at…
Pub is a word derived from the term “public house,” which is “an establishment licensed to sell alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises and often serving meals as well,” according to Webster’s. It’s touching to consider that proprietors who make their living with liquor licenses are so concerned about…
Peter Tarantino, who with the help of his brothers tried to plant his sophisticated brand of Mediterranean cuisine near Fair Park with Tarantino’s before that project was undone by a backed-up and bubbling sewer line, is champing at the bit to get CAVA launched. CAVA is Tarantino’s traditional Spanish restaurant,…
Who doesn’t get a bit choked up when the first strains of “Impossible Dream” rise up during a production of Man of La Mancha? There’s just something compelling about those who struggle–vainly–toward the summit where greatness awaits. Evel Knievel completed hundreds of risky motorcycle jumps, but we remember him for…
Shannon Wynne, reformed night crawler extraordinaire and founder of such long-gone nightclubs as Fast and Cool and the “o” haunts (Nostromo, Rocko, Tango and Mexico), once had an uncanny touch for detecting the faint pulse in Dallas’ mediocre nightlife. But who would have thought Wynne also possessed an uncanny prescience…
There’s a prominent sign on the wall in the rest room foyer at Duke’s Original Road House. “Coming soon,” it reads, “brand new, bigger, better restrooms just for you.” Now it may seem strange to generate excitement by pre-announcing an impending john remodel, as you might an upcoming Rolling Stones…
Corporate public relations often highlight the unending sweaty grunt work involved in key personnel search and acquisition missions. Makes for good copy. That’s why Rosewood Hotels & Resorts no doubt called attention to its “lengthy search” when it announced it had come upon a replacement for Jeff Moschetti (now at…
According to the cafe’s menu, a Zaguán “is the elaborate entry-passage in the grand old colonial homes of Venezuela, Spain and Colombia.” This entryway is carefully carpeted with a pebble-stone mosaic, it adds. Indeed, the motto for this cafe is “a mosaic of tastes.” And Zaguán is that, as varied…
“Hole in the wall” is a sort of dining Holy Grail; the object of a fervent quest for hidden culinary riches dressed up like a Hee Haw extra. Like Rousseau’s noble savage, the true hole in the wall glimmers with irresistible romance and beats with the myth of primeval superiority…
Politicians have it easy. Television “journalists” such as Larry King and Katie Couric toss them softball questions, and no one expects an accurate response. Radicals like Rush and G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North dominate the supposedly liberal airwaves, limiting discourse to grunts of approval or disdain. Where 30 years…
Celebrity chef Stephan Pyles, who was recently tapped by Hotel ZaZa to oversee the development of its restaurant Dragonfly (a beast that feasts in-flight), has grabbed Crescent Court Executive Chef Jeff Moschetti to take hold of the kitchen. The California Culinary Academy graduate, who has also held positions at The…
“Miss America ate here.” This is a swell publicity claim for any restaurant, especially one planted among the sticks in a tiny town named for an itty-bitty tree with a fungus problem. Miss America combines all the things that make for good promo sizzle: beauty, talent and sex–or the lack…
Sometimes fresh seafood just isn’t enough to keep a restaurant afloat, even when the main course is dressed like a cowboy and the joint’s interior looks as if it were pilfered from a Sesame Street set. At least that’s what Phil Romano (Macaroni Grill, Eatzi’s, Fuddruckers, Cozymel’s) may think about…
The French have a saying, “vive la difference,” which basically means “we surrender” but is often translated as a celebration of the dissimilarities among people and cultures. Americans, for some reason, strive to eliminate perceived flaws and unique qualities from our consciousnesses. Accordingly, we try everything from plastic surgery to…
At this point on the dining timeline, Avanti Ristorante is perhaps better known for its longevity than its food. After all, more than a handful of restaurants execute its brand of Nor-Ital Mediterranean fare, often with better results. But Avanti has been doing it for 14 years; that’s a near…
Poor Caesar Barber. For the past 27 years, the cumbersome maintenance worker from New York tried only to meander harmlessly through life. But a gang of marketing toughs from McDonald’s and Burger King and other fast-food chains pummeled him daily with slogans. Teen-age hoodlums threatened to “super size” his orders…
Not long ago, Mud Bugs Cajun Café was known as the House of Voodoo, but the name was jettisoned swiftly, not long after it opened. You could see the scraps of plywood stacked in the rear from which the Mud Bugs signs were cut, painted orange and posted on the…
