NEW ELEGANCE IN DINING DOWNTOWN

If Dallas businessmen and women insist on moving into office space downtown, fighting over parking and dodging high-rise construction, there are those in Dallas who’ll be sure they are well fed. And with style.

If all goes according to plan, during the dog days of August, Calluaud restaurant will open a posh new brasserie on Main Street in the SPG Building next to Zales. Bernard Tranche, a captain at Calluaud on McKinney Avenue for three and a half years, wants to provide a place for an elegant lunch in comfortable surroundings. Tronche will be maitre d’ at the new restaurant, where prices will be less expensive and the menu more extensive than at the McKinney Avenue location.

Another innovative restaurateur, Alberto Lombardi, is staking out new territory downtown as well as in Ad-dison. The owner of La Trattoria Lombardi on Hall Street is excited about the construction of Ristorante Lombardi in Addison and the West End Cafe at 311 Market Street. Another expansion is being considered across from the site of the West End Caté in the old city jail.

Meanwhile, far north of downtown, Frank Tolbert is scouting for a building in Addison where he hopes to open another chili parlour. And closer in, on Routh Street, restaurateur Jean Claude Prévol has turned real estate entrepreneur, buying the building that houses AD-WEEK and the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture. ADWEEK plans to leave; the Institute may stay and rent the entire space.