Dallas' Most Interesting Restaurants No. 40: San Salvaje

Leading up to our annual Best of Dallas® issue, we're counting down the 50 most interesting restaurants in Dallas. These spots bring something unique or compelling to the city's dining scene, feeding both your appetite and soul. San Salvaje is a restaurant that defies every stereotype of the downtown Dallas...

By Scott Reitz

July 28, 2015

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Leading up to our annual Best of Dallas® issue, we're counting down the 50 most interesting restaurants in Dallas. These spots bring something unique or compelling to the city's dining scene, feeding both your appetite and soul.

San Salvaje is a restaurant that defies every stereotype of the downtown Dallas dining scene. The restaurant serves both meat and potatoes, but it is not a meat-and-potato restaurant at all. Chef/owner Stephan Pyles draws his inspiration not from the Texas steakhouse model, but from nearly every country south of Texas all the way to Argentina, with some island cuisine thrown in for good measure. You'll find a riff on Peruvian potatoes next to a red snapper fried with green bean dreadlocks.

Somehow it all works nicely and South American dishes play well alongside plates from Mexico without missing a beat. The results are an opportunity to sample flavors from an entire continent from a single bar stool, or maybe a chair out on the patio where Latin-American music is often performed live.

The cocktails and desserts keep up, too, tapping into the same ingredients to provide welcoming libations and a sweet close to what is often a memorable meal.

Pyles casts a wide net and somehow pulls off a multicultural menu without watering down any of the cuisines. The results are an interesting, seemingly endless menu unlike any other in Dallas.

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