Fond Brings Lunch, Aperitivo Hour and Olive Oil-Topped Soft Serve to Downtown Dallas

Fond is a lovely new restaurant inside Santander Tower (formerly Thanksgiving Tower) in downtown Dallas. It's the creation of two Dallas food veterans, Jennie Kelley and Brandon Moore, who have been behind restaurant pop-ups such as Frank, Better Half and Deep Weiner. They've put roots down and are offering lunch along with an aperitivo hour.
We stopped by for lunch recently. Santander Tower is a beautiful building, and we get wistful thinking of the days that these behemoths were bustling with busy workers doing the 9 to 5 hustle in tall buildings. (Will elevator pitches die? Will we just ramble on forever now? How many kids even get that reference?) The restaurant is behind Parterre, the coffee bar and restaurant that faces Elm Street and has a lovely brunch. At Fond, a ground-floor space, the dining room is done in off-white tones and light wood; large glass windows allow for lots of natural light.

The menu has a couple of light options for the table along with salads, soups, sandwiches and a daily special. No more than 20 items all told; a nice number of options but not a heavy read.

We started our lunch with a Tower Club: thick cuts of roasted turkey and an even thicker cut of crispy pork belly. It comes on ciabatta bread with Swiss, cheddar, tomato and aioli. This is a fantastically solid sandwich.
A bowl of lemon chicken orzo soup was smooth as silk with strips of pulled white chicken meat and soft orzo at the bottom. Unfortunately, it was oversalted and a bit cool, perhaps attributed to our late lunch date. Our server was more than accommodating about switching it out with another.

The grilled cheese sandwich comes on a toasted house sourdough with three kinds of cheese (sharp cheddar, Parmesan and Comté) with a light smear of tomato jam ($12). A Caesar has crispy capers and a fun house-made "everything sourdough Parmesan crumble" that is extra tasty and crunchy ($12).
The aperitivo movement they're pushing here (which we fully support) is a bit like a happy hour menu, but take out the bar food and add European side dishes like almonds and olives, sourdough bread with cultured butter, tin fish and an El Carrot (2-hour sous vide) with a tajin aioli. There's also Parisian ham and octopus.

Aperitivo hour, 3–7 p.m., Monday through Friday, is a fine way to ease out of work mode and into whatever mode awaits you after work. Just a little snack and drink to bridge the day.

Fond carries natural wines and a good selection of local craft beer; a modest collection of bottles behind the bar rounds off the booze menu.

The latter half of the aperitivo menu has Detroit-style pizzas (not very European, but let's not quibble over pizza) made with a sourdough crust and secret cheese blend.

We didn't try it when we visited, but we spotted a lot of soft serve on Fond's Instagram page — topped with a light drizzle of olive oil, which apparently is a whole thing in Italy. The ice cream is made from scratch in-house, and they roll out new flavors often like pistachio, Dr Pepper, pineapple and blueberry. It's considered a palate cleanser and comes with a swirl of olive oil and a pinch of Maldon salt.

Fond, Santander Tower, 1601 Elm. St. Monday – Friday, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. and 3–7 p.m.