I love Cork. Which is why I hate it. If Dallas has needed one thing for a long time, it’s a no-frills, down-and-dirty wine bar. One that energetically trumps the numbness of most wine lists. One with sass. One with smarts. Other places play around with the wine bar theme,…
Nature is awe-inspiring, splendidly pure, breathtakingly harmonious, gloriously elegant in its savage innocence. If you don’t yet know this after a lifetime of public television nature programs, Robert Redford rants, and Free Willy sequels, you’ll be stuffed with this delicious knowledge at Wilderness Grill in Grapevine Mills mall. You may…
Of smokes & meat The spot on Cedar Springs and Carlisle has served as a rotating temple of vices over the past couple of years. First it was The Joint, a hot-and-rowdy pool hall and restaurant staffed with waitresses who wore little more than cue-stick chalk. Then it was Lone…
Cork felons Serious Texas wine sippers are angry because they think it’s going to cut their access to wines generally not stocked on Texas store shelves. Wineries are mad because they don’t like being hauled off to the slammer for serving those sippers. But that’s tough. State Sen. David Sibley’s…
The pub is packed. Every tiny table is occupied. But just as we walk in, a spot opens by the window in the raised seating area to the left of the bar. It could be romantic, even if the view is just parked cars off Gaston Avenue in the foreground…
Bizu isn’t Alberto Lombardi’s first French bistro, and Bizu, which means “little kiss” in French (with a twist on the French spelling), probably won’t be his last. But what do I know? Sure, I’d stabbed my fork into some marginal meals at Lombardi’s in the West End. And I’d sat…
Eat Tibet free It’s almost nauseating how the entertainment industry flaunts its benevolence when there’s a chic cause to latch onto. Millions of children across the globe die every year from diarrhea, but you don’t see weepy Sharon Stones organizing star-studded oral rehydration salt fundraisers. It’s not as chichi as,…
You have to admit it. Owner Hamid Moallem did a hell of a job retrofitting his new restaurant into Soho Food, Drinks and Jazz. I remember when it was Okeanos, featuring seafood by famed Dallas chef Avner Samuel. The institutional terra-cotta tile floors and baby-blue walls with yellow trim the…
Bistro bluster Ouch. Last week’s review of The Bistro singed some nerves, and it wasn’t my impressions of the food or service that inflamed temperaments, either. It was naming the names of those responsible for The Bistro’s largely marginal fare. A March 15 Bistro press release ballyhoos the restaurant’s new…
Soul food We’ve all heard that chefs are a little crazy. We’ve also heard that crazy people sometimes make drastic moves at the behest of ghosts. Help the president run the country for instance. But open a restaurant? That’s what former Sipango chef/partner Matthew Antonovich confesses. He says his recent…
That little restaurant space with the burgundy awning near Lovers and Inwood has gone through some modest mutations over the years. In 1992, it was Le Caviste, a French wine bistro. Then in 1993, Guy and Martine Calluaud appropriated the space and created Calluaud’s restaurant, a more informal version of…
“A 1967 Raquel Welch romp,” cookbook author and TV cooking-show host Nathalie Dupree says as I take a seat at Joshele, the new upscale dining and jazz spot in Plano. “Space, A, space, H, O, M, Do you know it?” she asks. “Wait a minute–I don’t think you’re old enough.”…
Dragonfly flutters A Dallas County district judge slapped longtime Dallas nightclub operator Steve Kahn with a temporary injunction late last week, essentially removing him as head of the Dragonfly Bar & Restaurant on Lower Greenville Avenue. The ruling follows months of legal wrangling between Kahn and Dragonfly’s limited partners, led…
“This is a German restaurant. You will have fun if you just follow orders.” The guy who said this was on stage, dressed in lederhosen (leather shorts with suspenders). With a squeezebox in his hands, he unsuccessfully prodded diners to rise from their seats, stand up by their tables, and…
Load of bull Sometimes a probe into the obtuse puzzle surrounding Dale Wamstad’s III Forks steakhouse can get you more than you bargained for. Wamstad and III Forks ran full-page ads late last week in the front section of The Dallas Morning News. Baffling things, these ads. “Before Dallas was…
Restaurant press kits can sometimes make for raucously good reading. Writing is crisp. Cliches are punchy. Quotes are pithy and ripe with unaffected wisdom. Skimming through press releases often reveals precious little nuggets from chefs. Phil Butler, former executive chef of Chicago’s acclaimed Havana Cafe Cubano and current chief chef…
Freeze! Drop that Cabernet Assault with bodily injury. Burglary of a motor vehicle. Criminal trespass. Shipping a bottle of wine to a Texas resident. Such activities may soon be on the same criminal footing. Legislation recently introduced by state Sen. David Sibley (R-Waco) would stiffen penalties for producers and out-of-state…
“I say it looks like Sputnik,” says one of my dining companions, sloshing a Modelo Especial in one of Taco Diner’s stubby square tumblers. “No, no,” says someone else. “A moored sea mine.” I thought it looked like the head of a mace, the spiked battle club used in medieval…
Midnight snack “Mico” Rodriguez of the M Crowd Restaurant Group, operators of Mi Cocina, Taco Diner, The Mercury, and Mainstream Fish House, says the defunct Mainstream Fish House outlet on Oak Lawn Avenue will open as Citizen in June. Citizen will feature a lounge aura with diffused lighting filled with…
Rodizio means “rotation” in Portuguese. This definition, stated in a press release headlined “Totally Unique Grill to locate in the heart of Arlington,” proved significant after two visits to Rodizio Grill, a continuous-service Brazilian churrascarias, or grill house, because the quality seemed to spiral downward from markedly flawed to barely…
La Mirabelle woos suitors Chef-owner Francois Fotre is trolling for bidders on his upscale North Dallas French bistro La Mirabelle. No, business isn’t sluggish. Fotre insists he has built a devoted following. “My February is going to beat the pants off last year’s February,” he brags. Rather, Fotre wants to…
Years back, I was in a country western/rock band that toured the nation’s mid-section. This momentous opportunity came after long months in a dark, leaky basement attempting to replicate the lush orchestrations of Frank Zappa’s “Easy Meat” with a power trio, filling any melodic, contrapuntal deficiencies with generous helpings of…
