Two Dallas Spots Earn Kudos on Texas Monthly's List of Best New Restaurants

Texas Monthly released its list of the top 10 new Texas restaurants for 2025, adding to many accolades cast upon Dallas restaurants over the past year. Between our updated top 100 restaurants, the Texas Michelin Guide and others, there's certainly no shortage of great dining recommendations around Dallas.

To make this list, each restaurant must have been open from December 2023 through November 2024 and must also be the first location in the state. Otherwise, authors Patricia Sharpe and Courtney Bond say, "Life is serious enough—live a little. And eat a lot."

Coming in at No. 2 on the list is chef Tiffany Derry's Radici Wood Fired Grill in Farmers Branch. Derry has long been praised for her Southern fare and hospitality at Roots Southern Table, but here, she delves into Italian food with that same hospitality. Texas Monthly notes a focaccia with a distinctive personality and a silvery whole branzino that "arrives gloriously heaped with parsley-rich Mediterranean salsa verde. The dishes stand out in a dining room that is a smart amalgam of black, white, and gray. Here, all the color is on the plate."

Radici was a shoo-in for our top 100 restaurants this past year; a casarecce pasta with braised rabbit and pork stood out as did a braciole di maiale (pork chop) cooked over the prominent wood-fired grill.

In addition to those dishes, Radici recently launched a Saturday and Sunday brunch service that includes an Amalfi breakfast platter fruit pizza (a sugar cookie, ricotta and fruit) and gravy pasta with meatballs, pork, sausage, pomodoro and Parmigiano Reggiano.

But wait. They also have a new pasta hour from 5 to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, during which you can get antipasti, pasta and dessert for $30. Make reservations.


Mabo, a yakitori in Preston Center, came in at No. 3 on the list. This was named Best New Restaurant by Esquire and is a contender for a James Beard Award for the same award. This eight-seat, kappo-style restaurant is racking up awards through a cooking technique in which skewered chicken is grilled over binchotan charcoal for $200 a person. (Binchotan is the purest form of charcoal and is renowned for its precise temperature control.) Tokyo-born chef Masayuki "Masa" Otaka ran the Japanese restaurant Teppo on Greenville Avenue for 27 years.

There are only two seatings a night (5:30 and 8:30 p.m.) five days a week.

Dinner here, which lasts three hours, starts with five seasonal a la carte dishes followed by six to eight yakitori skewers, featuring all parts of the chicken, including organs, along with seasonal vegetables. Reservations are a must.