The Top 100 Dallas Restaurants, No. 1: If it was just a small Deep Ellum shopfront hawking tacos, Revolver Taco Lounge would already rank highly on this list. The front room is no ordinary taqueria; chef-owner Regino Rojas and his crew mix their interpretations of the classics with entirely new inventions, like a filet mignon taco topped with foie gras or the Kermit in Bangkok, starring curried frog legs. Every ingredient here is premium quality, most of all the tortillas themselves, made from scratch and so fresh that you can smell the corn on your hands after eating.

Yes, this taco shop and its single communal table would already be a top-10 place to eat in Dallas — and then there’s the reservations-only backroom. For a flat $120 per person, plus tip and drinks, Rojas and his mother Juanita Rojas will cook a fine-dining tasting menu in a tiny show kitchen. Just a handful of tables are seated in the backroom each night — this author and a friend were once the only two guests — to experience food that ranges from traditional (rabbit soup with Juanita’s whole-rabbit stock) to modern (a dab of salsa verde on a curlicue of perfectly tender octopus). The mole tasting, which pairs Juanita’s superb traditional sauces with Regino’s perfectly cooked meats, reveals both chefs at their best.

Top pick: Revolver serves the best tacos al pastor in Dallas.

The downside: Menu items in the front room sell out fairly frequently, so have a backup choice in mind.

Fun fact: Not only are we naming Revolver Best Restaurant, but in this year’s Best of Dallas we awarded them Best Hot Dog, too, for their Mexican-style dog wrapped in bacon and topped with a scoop of beans. How many cities can say that their most interesting restaurant serves a killer hot dog?