Is Dallas Really Not a Top 50 Food City? One Popular List Seems to Think So.

Dallas has been collateral damage of the culinary snub many times, and while we can continue to dream up a tortoise and the hare scenario where our roster of underdogs surpasses NYC and Los Angeles one day, unfortunately, we're still stuck in the introduction of that story.

The New York Times released its list of the Top 50 Restaurants in America, and exactly zero Dallas restaurants made the list. It's developed by 14 reporters and editors who say they took over 76 flights to eat more than 200 meals in 33 states.

They show up unannounced, make reservations on their own accord, and don't accept freebies so that they can dine like we do—hoping for a meal worth remembering while being welcomed and delighted.

Four restaurants in Texas made the list this year: ChòpNBlok in Houston, Isidore in San Antonio, Lao'd Bar in Austin and P Thai's Khao Man Gai & Noodles, also in Austin.

In the past four years, only three places in Dallas have made the list: 2021 went to Roots Southern Table in 2021; Sister in 2022; and Simply South, a little vegetarian Indian restaurant in 2024. This year? Squat.

Ouch.

Everything is bigger in Texas, including our egos, and we don't sport it for nothin'. Is this really the best they could do? Do they need to be pointed in the right direction?

We're upset. So we did what any rational person would do. We went on Reddit.

As it turns out, the entire state of Washington was left off the list, as was Kentucky and about a dozen or so other states. Los Angeles had four restaurants on the list, and locals there were just as baffled as we were.

@Top-Yam-6625 commented, "What a bizarre list."

"Seems like they are deliberately trying to put out a significantly different list filled with newly opened restaurants every year, which I guess I can kind of understand, but they really shouldn't title it "America's Best Restaurants".

"76 flights and over 200 meals to put out a list like this ... bizarre indeed. I might be being too cynical, but this almost seems like a ploy to travel and eat as much as possible on company dime, picking a bunch of new restaurants because they can't justify revisiting all these established ones. Just a hunch," @CreepyJellyfish1489 responded.

Others felt more strongly about the alleged snub of their stomping grounds. @Courtlessjester said, "I don't trust that State Department mouthpiece of a rag to tell me the date it was printed, let alone what's going on in the city I live in, the same city it goes out of its way to find fault in."

You can't please everyone with round-up lists like these, but a little representation can go a long way. To start, they could give our list of the Top 100 Restaurants in Dallas a gander. That alone could show them just a fraction of what they're missing in Big D's dining scene.