Dallas walked the fashion-meets-culinary runway on February 22, when Café Dior by Dominique Crenn opened in Highland Park Village.
To understand Café Dior’s significance is to first understand Dominique Crenn. The café is the Dallas debut of ceiling-shattering French-born chef Dominique Crenn, the first and only woman in the U.S. to earn Michelin’s most esteemed honor of three Michelin stars in 2018 for her San Francisco restaurant Atelier Crenn. Globally, only 151 restaurants currently hold that distinction.
Crenn is a James Beard Award winner, Robb Report’s 10th most powerful person in American fine dining and one of Time’s “100 Most Influential People in the World.” On May 17, she will be inducted into the MenuMasters Hall of Fame. Crenn will join acclaimed chefs like French Laundry's Thomas Keller, 2014 James Beard Outstanding Chef Nancy Silverton, Manhattan's prized Daniel Boulud and Texas legend Stephan Pyles. She is being honored for her pioneering stance on sustainable cuisine and her many accolades.
CultureMap detailed Crenn’s culinary philosophy Feb. 7, highlighting her protest to factory farming by championing meatless menus and commitment to plastic-free restaurants.
Still, Café Dior’s opening received mixed reviews. One Dallas influencer called it “hyped” with a “limited menu” and “lackluster” food. Others said they “left hungry.” The café confirmed that hosted dining was limited due to a high demand for reservations.
We scored one of the first available reservations back in March (but Café Dior requests no press photos on their menu, so we're using theirs). The experience begins with a pre-visit call inquiring about dietary restrictions.
What to Expect
Café Dior sits on the second floor of the Dior boutique. Pass the $6,700 Lady Dior bags and $1,090 J’adior pumps, and head upstairs. There, a hostess welcomes you before you step into a world as Christian Dior might've imagined it. The light-filled, intimate room is filled with refined touches such as Dior’s houndstooth motif on the chairs filled with patrons of all walks of life, an artful mirrored bar back, fresh florals and nods to the fashion house throughout. Walk-in bar seating is limited to cocktails, coffee and $175 Caviar D’or, caviar service.Much is implied in the name. It’s a café, meaning it’s a “small eating and drinking establishment, historically a coffeehouse, usually featuring a limited menu,” according to Britannica. Secondly, it’s Dior. Anticipate Dior-level pricing with 20% auto gratuity. And also, no photos inside.
The meal begins with warm bread served alongside a perfectly rounded thick pat of herb-filled butter crowned with vibrant petals. It’s almost too pretty to eat.Café Dior isn't breaking culinary ground, but it is creating a polished culinary experience. Just as Dior transformed fashion with the A-line silhouette, Café Dior transforms lunch into a memorable moment.
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Although Crenn is the mastermind behind the menu, a Dallas-based company executes the day-to-day haute cuisine.
Crenn pulls from Dior’s design archive for the presentation-forward menu. The Miss Dior Consommé ($23) embodies the 1949 Trompe l'œil hand-embroidered “Miss Dior” gown. The delicate chicken broth is filled with grains and garnished with eye-catching yellow and lively purple blossoms that pay tribute to Catherine Dior, Christian Dior’s resilient sister, for whom the Miss Dior moniker is inspired. It's a dish we imagine she would have swooned over.
The refreshing May Hamachi ($30) evokes the 1953 silk floss on organza “May” dress. According to The Met, it’s “the most telling example is his frequent self-presentation, not as a man who symbolized the authority of French taste, but rather as a simple gardener, farmer, and mill owner.”
Pamplemousse on a Plate
Marc Bohan’s 1965 Dior Haute Couture yellow-silk “Pamplemousse” crepe dress shines throughout several dishes.The Marbella Prawns ($39) were firm and plump. If dietary restrictions aren’t confirmed in advance, the kitchen is prepared with a vegetarian, black truffle-topped Pasta Mariniére ($36).
For desserts, Crenn enlisted Atelier Crenn’s pastry chef, Juan Contreras, a two-time James Beard Outstanding Pastry Chef finalist. The duo has a long history dating back to Crenn’s time at Adobe Restaurant and Lounge in the early 2000s. Contreras compiled four desserts, including La Mariée, a cultural, white Dior Cannage motif-shaped hard shell filled with vanilla bean and fruit. Pair it with the $8 latte served with a choice of Christian Dior’s famed bee and rose motifs foam art.
The café recently launched an afternoon tea service. For a minimum of two and $75 per person, enjoy a tiered tower of chicken salad sandwiches, caviar and watercress choux, salmon gravlax crackers, hazelnut chocolate cookies, piña colada baba au rhum and banana and sesame canelés. Teas and ceremonial matcha are available a la carte, or embrace luxury with a $25 glass of Veuve Clicquot Brut Yellow Label.
The Skinny
Café Dior isn't breaking culinary ground, but it is creating a polished culinary experience. Just as Dior transformed fashion with the A-line silhouette, Café Dior transforms lunch into a memorable moment. Through the café, diners indulge in a sensorial stroll into the world of Monsieur Dior. Everything you see, touch and taste drips with elegance and refined effort down to a sip of water, served in $390 crystal art de la table.Café Dior, 58 Highland Park Village, Monday - Saturday, 10 a.m. 6 p.m., Sunday, noon - 5 p.m.
