Thursday, March 28, 2024 Mar 28, 2024
55° F Dallas, TX
Advertisement
Business

Business Lunch: Samar by Stephan Pyles

The latest restaurant from superstar chef Stephan Pyles combines exotic flavors with small-bite portions. But will hungry Dallas diners be satisfied?
By Todd Johnson |
Image
photography by Kevin Marple


WHY SAMAR: Everything is bigger in Texas. What an exhausting cliché. Alas, it’s also on the nose with Dallas diners. Our love of steakhouse culture and its monstrous portions has filtered down to every meal of the day. Remember that scene from The Flintstones where a rack of ribs—presumably from a T-Rex—is so large that it tips the family car over? Yeah. In Dallas, we’d eat that for a light breakfast.

So then what to make of Samar, celebrity chef Stephan Pyles’ new Arts District oddity? Officially, it’s not called a tapas restaurant. But portions are small and meant to be shared with tablemates. It’s not necessarily conducive to a business lunch with strangers or germaphobes. Then there’s the fare itself, a menu neatly divided into Spanish, Indian, and Eastern Mediterranean options. This is exotic cuisine with a delicate touch: pumpkin flan, Medjool dates, and zucchini blossoms. No porterhouse or creamed spinach here. Some Dallas diners might leave Samar scratching their heads. But I suspect more will be entranced. Adventure is the order of the day at Samar, and it can be quite intoxicating.

WHAT TO EAT: The small downtown restaurant is nestled in the corner of 2100 Ross. On one visit, we took a party of 12 for a business lunch. The eager staff cobbled together some tables along a banquette to no avail. We gave up on doing business and concentrated on the meal instead. And what a meal it was. From the Spanish menu, we shared peekytoe crab fritters with celery-citrus sauce, seared pork tenderloin with apples, saffron, and vanilla, and a tapas mainstay—potatoes and chorizo casserole—turned on its ear, this one featuring organic sunny-side-up eggs and Hudson Valley foie gras. It was difficult to share but incredibly indulgent as were the “Tres Vasos”: three glasses, each one layered with gourmet ingredients much like a parfait. Of the three offered, our favorite was the ruby red grapefruit and lemongrass-ginger gelée topped with feta foam. It was just the right balance of savory and sour.

Image
photography by Kevin Marple
Another visit found two of us sitting at Samar’s crescent shaped onyx bar—so sexy—mingling Eastern Mediterranean and Indian selections: Turkish pasta stuffed with beef and sizzling paprika butter paired well with tandoori chicken butter masala, a soothing favorite. The Persian spiced fried chicken elicited a response from my dining partner: “They look like Chicken McNuggets.” So true and, to be honest, I found them pedestrian as well.

Not so the chocolate samosa for dessert. It was familiar enough—a tiny chocolate stuffed turnover—but its candied rose petal sauce stole the show. The dish typifies Pyles’ Samar. This is a restaurant about discovery. If you prefer comfort and large portions, well … there’s always another steakhouse right around the corner.




THE LOWDOWN






SAMAR BY STEPHAN PYLES

THE FOOD: International small plates 

THE COST: Average lunch cost $16 (based on suggested order of two small plates per person)
  
WI-FI: No





FULL BAR: Yes





THE POWER TABLE: Table 10, a four top with a great view of the room, or the Red Tent room, a semi-private room that can seat up to eight people.

Related Articles

Image
Business

Experts Weigh In: What the NAR Settlement Could Mean for DFW’s Residential Market

Rogers Healy, Briggs Freeman's Russ Anderson, and Allie Beth Allman's Keith Conlon share insights on the landmark National Association of Realtors lawsuit.
Image
Arts & Entertainment

The Best Places to See a Drive-In or Outdoor Movie in North Texas

Whether you’re solo or with a group, there are some great places to see movies under the stars in DFW.
By Bethany Erickson and Natalie Gempel
Image
Nursing

UNTHSC’s New Nursing Degrees to Focus on Entrepreneurship and Leadership 

The Fort Worth health center added two new degree programs last month after a Board of Regents vote to address the nursing shortage. 
Advertisement