“It’s a twist in every bite,” says owner Mary Dudley.
Her menu is, in her words, a “twisted” take on pasta, potatoes, salads, sandwiches and more. The most popular item is the Mardi Gras Pasta, a large container of pasta topped with seafood and a house-made Cajun sauce.
Mary’s Twisted Kitchen has been propelled by several top TikTok creators and Instagrammers, like Bigdawg (135,000 followers), Dre in Dallas (1.3 million followers) and the famous Mr. Chime Time (2.2 million followers). Keith Lee tried to get a taste for his 17.5 million followers, but he didn’t get the chance.
“When he came, we were closed,” Dudley says, clearly still hurt. She hopes he will return now that the famous TikToker has moved to Dallas County.
Before Dudley became the talk of TikTok, she was the talk of her neighborhood.
“First, it was just word of mouth at the house," she says of when she was selling food out of her home kitchen. Soon, traffic backed up to neighboring streets. Dudley knew then she had to expand or risk upsetting neighbors.
“We did it at the house for four years. We did this oxtail bar. We had traffic over two streets. I knew the neighbors were going to call the people on me,” she says laughing.
The famous Mr. Chime Time with half pasta, half potato, lobster, crawfish, shrimp and salmon.
Paige Stewart
“Then we did the food truck, and that was too much jumping on the truck, getting out of the truck. So I said, ‘I'm going to go find a storefront,’ and so we found this building,” she says.
She has been on Red Bird Lane in a small shopping center since 2023, and customers have flocked to the location.
At the urging of a frequent customer and local police officer, Mary’s Twisted Kitchen finally got a Facebook page and now has 88,000 followers and a 4.5-star rating on Google Reviews, Uber Eats, DoorDash and Yelp.
Seafood is prominent in all the dishes here, like the popular seafood pasta that starts with a pile of linguine covered in crawfish, lobster and shrimp drowning in Alfredo sauce. Or get it with the house-made (and very popular) Mardi Gras sauce.
The top smash potato option is called Mr. Chime Time, named after the TikTok reviewer.
“My son created a dish for him that is half potato, half pasta with lobster, crawfish and shrimp. He added some salmon onto it, and so we just named it after him," Dudley says.
If you are not into seafood, that’s fine — the pasta and potato dishes also come with steak or chicken. Both Dre in Dallas and Mr. Chime Time agree that the pork chop basket is stellar. There are daily specials that are twisted takes on standard menu items. For instance, one day, you can get a smash potato with catfish fillet, crawfish meat and cheese sauce. The next day, you can order blackened catfish over dirty rice and shrimp.
And get this: there is more than one restaurant inside of Mary’s Twisted Restaurant. House of Hibachi, Mary’s other food venture, is in the same building. It is a seafood and soul food take on hibachi bowls. Each bowl is named after an area of the house or a type of home.
“We have one called The Den, which is just chicken. Then we have a Penthouse, which is lobster meat, crawfish and shrimp. Then we have one that's the Master Room with chicken, steak and shrimp," Dudley says.
When you come, expect a wait: food is made to order, and you won’t be the only person trying to grab a twisted plate for lunch or dinner. Lines are long but move steadily. Calling ahead might shorten the wait. If you have a craving but don’t want to leave the comfort of your home or are stuck at work, Grubhub and UberEats are options as well.
Fair warning: come on an empty stomach. The generous portion sizes will fill you up for the rest of the day and maybe even the next.
Mary's Twisted Kitchen, 1223 E. Redbird Lane, Tuesday - Saturday, noon - 8 p.m.
