Fairmont ponders Brasserie fate Though some conclude its demise is all but inevitable, Fairmont Hotel management dances when asked to confirm the Brasserie’s rumored closing. “[The rumor] is not currently accurate,” says Fairmont’s director of food and beverage, Roger Hyde. “Though it is part of our current conversation.” Roughly two…
It doesn’t take more than a taste to realize that Indian cuisine is saturated with complexity and inspiration. So saturated that, until recently, many chefs have avoided its volatile mysteries. Michael Romano, executive chef of the Union Square Cafe in New York, says using Indian spices is akin to learning…
Mysterious new venture Though he won’t disclose its location, ex-dani Foods Executive Chef Kent Rathbun says he, businessman Robert Hoffman, and award-winning chef George Brown–his former dani cohorts–have settled on a location for their new restaurant, tentatively set to open in May or June 1999. Rathbun adds that design work…
Texadelphia to blanket Texas Texadelphia operator Tom Landis says he has secured the rights to expand the Philly cheese-steak sandwich restaurant throughout the Lone Star state. In an agreement reached with Texadelphia founder and Philadelphia native Joel Stanley, who operates two of the restaurants in Austin, Landis and his partners,…
Jaco Pastorius, the late fretless electric bass player who revolutionized the instrument in the late ’70s with the jazz ensemble Weather Report, once said that good musicians borrow ideas. Geniuses steal them. Pastorius left little doubt as to his own genius. Incorporating sweeping melodic grooves, chords, harmonics, and percussive effects…
Star Canyon to hit Vegas Dallas kitsch meets the paradigm of taste. Star Concepts Vice President Michael Cox says Star Canyon and the company’s developing taqueria restaurant will open in Las Vegas’ new Venetian Hotel–a re-creation of Venice–when the hotel development is completed next April. Star Canyon will be located…
There’s one thing you can say about the best in Irish cuisine: If you drink too much of it, you completely lose the ability to enunciate consonants. Now, it would be way too easy to suggest that the Tipperary Inn is a great place to dine, as long as you…
Al Biernat is a lot like Coca Cola, Disney, or General Electric. He’s a rock-solid stock, the kind you might sink cash into if you had any hope of realizing a clean return on the financial grease trap that is the restaurant business. Just walk into his place some evening…
Champagne shutters In the wake of collapsing food quality and a largely absentee chef, Champagne restaurant shut down its lunch and dinner service in mid-July. Opening chef Bruno Mella, who had been shuttling between the Firehouse and Champagne, will no longer have an active role in the restaurant. Sources say…
Papercity won’t hurl barbs Targeting residents of Dallas’ high-income ‘hoods, Papercity, a clone of a slick rag spawned in Houston, will spare Dallas restaurants blood-letting criticism in its dining coverage, according to editor and former Dallas Observer reporter Rebecca Sherman. Instead, the bimonthly urban-lifestyle mag, with an expected circulation of…
There’s one thing you can say about Big Fish Little Fish, the new seafood boathouse on Henderson: It’s got a great hook. It’s cluttered with lots of kitschy seaside props such as a patio fashioned like a boat dock with a thick rope railing, a deck made with wide planks,…
Clive and Stuart’s closes After weeks of rumors that its demise was coming, Clive & Stuart’s Island Cuisine on McKinney Avenue gave up the ghost, closing down July 12. One inside source says trucks pulled up to the restaurant at 2 a.m. following dinner Saturday night to load supplies and…
A column appeared recently in The Wall Street Journal about the increasing tendency among writers and journalists to make full disclosures about themselves. These disclosures, which often appear parenthetically, are ostensibly made so readers won’t think the writer has a hidden agenda. The interesting thing is that they invariably confess…
Ocean Grill chef squeezed out Ocean Grill Executive Chef Willem De Froy, a founding chef of Sambuca, was forced out of the Plano seafood restaurant by owner Anson Chan after De Froy and his wife Amy’s attempt to take it over crumbled, says Chan, who founded Yoli’s Seafood Restaurants and…
Chef William Guthrie likes cookbooks. He maintains a hardcover collection with volumes dating back as far as 1796. Selected outcasts from his compilation can be found on a wooden bookshelf in the rear of his new “historical” downtown diner, Guthrie’s. Each volume has a price penciled in the upper corner…
We’ve been infiltrated by lifestyle Nazis who want nothing but the best for us. They’re everywhere, scrutinizing every cranny of our lives, browbeating us to be socially responsible and globally aware. These goose-steppers specialize in making mindless fun taboo. Look at how stupid they have made life. We need lawyers…
Cafe space resurrected After lying vacant for several months, the building that was once home to Coco Pazzo Cafe in Addison will open as a restaurant featuring South American cuisine September 1. The venue, tentatively named South Forks Grill, is undergoing some light reconstruction. “Sfuzzi’s had a beautiful restaurant. Then…
Pyramid Room chef dies Acclaimed Dallas chef John Edwards died early Friday in what police describe as an apparent suicide. A Dallas native and the father of two children, the 37-year-old Edwards joined the Fairmont Hotel in 1980 as sous chef in the Pyramid Room restaurant and was appointed executive…
“Tapas” is a term casually tossed around by restaurateurs these days. Servings of everything from grilled sweetbreads with lemon to greasy buffalo wings to bowls of Wheat Chex mixer snacks are dubbed tapas in an effort to give the most lowly tavern mouth-parchers international flair. But what the heck are…
Luscher to exit Routh Street Prominent chef Brian C. Luscher will depart Routh Street Brewery July 15 to join Mike McMahan of Mac’s Bar & Grill as corporate executive chef. Through his company Mariah Corp., McMahan will upgrade Mac’s Bar & Grill restaurants in Plano, Arlington, and Midland as well…
Funny things happen when people get on in years all flush and seasoned with life experience. Frivolous amusements lose their luster, and things like regularity and mutual-fund yields get our hearts pumping harder than Victoria’s Secret catalogs or Marky Mark underwear ads did before 401K became more meaningful than K-Y…
Rigatoni is one of those diamonds in the strip-mall rough–or at least a three-quarter carat zircon in a sea of mood rings. It’s clean, crisp, and a little staged in the way restaurants get when things start to resemble a sub sandwich emporium or a Motel 6 lobby. This immaculate…
