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Food Events

Our Picks for DFW Restaurant Week 2020

The dining event kicks off this weekend with preview dinners and officially launches on August 31. Here's what we're eyeing.
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Kevin Marple
While reservations for DFW Restaurant Week went live earlier this month, the actual meals are now fast-approaching. (And it looks like reservations are still available for many places.) Preview weekend starts August 28, while DFW Restaurant Week officially runs August 31 through September 6, with many participants keeping their specials running through much of September.

Of the nearly 100 restaurant options, look for the “features” offered: $49, $39, Take-Out, Lunch Experience, Preview Weekend. This will help you navigate each restaurant’s pricing and meal offerings. When ordering takeout, be sure to mention “DFW Restaurant Week.”

There are plenty of places to support—which is where we come in. We’re looking to some of our recent best lists to help you navigate this year’s restaurant week offerings. We can’t speak to restaurants’ latest dining setups in the COVID era, but we can think about how their food made us feel.

Although restaurants are operating at 50 percent capacity and takeout can pose some interesting challenges for chefs, have some patience, grace, and tip mightily! Without further ado, restaurants for your consideration…



Gemma


50 Best Restaurants

Gemma balances fine dining with cutting-edge cuisine in a cozy dining room. You feel taken care of, from the biscuit that comes warm and golden and nestling bacon and fig, to the final bringing of the check. The cooking—French and Italian influences with a Californian lightness—at Gemma is sharp and focused; the execution splendid. It’s nice to know there are places that quietly continue to confound the derivative and do something subtle and creative. We have a gem in Gemma.
Offering: Preview weekend; dinner ($39).

Tei-An


Best of Big D 2019: Best Japanese Restaurant; 50 Best Restaurants.

Tei-An delivers the purest expressions of Japanese food’s delicacy and refinement, from the silky sashimi to the soba ice cream with buckwheat honey. Teiichi Sakurai’s noodle-crafting skill, honed at the Tsukiji Soba Academy in Tokyo, means we make slurping his soba a ritual. Restaurant week: Dinner ($49), lunch, and takeout.

Jalisco Norte


50 Best Restaurants

At Jalisco Norte, the talents of chef Jose Meza, whose experience includes work at gastronomical meccas Noma in Copenhagen and Pujol in Mexico City, come out in dishes that blend fine technique and indigenous ingredients. Nopal salad is laced with chia seeds and brilliant red achiote oil. And roast chicken comes in a rainbow of sauces: encacahuetada, pipian, or mole negro. Of course it’s up to the chef what lands on the special prix fixe menu. Restaurant week: Preview weekend, dinner ($39), dinner takeout.

Al Biernat’s


The 10 Best Steakhouses in Dallas; 50 Best Restaurants.

Dining at the original Al Biernat’s is like being transported to an eccentric Tuscan villa. It nods to Mediterranean influences with vaulted ceilings and Roman columns, yet surprises with a little whimsy, like the fresco of Chihuly-esque orbs above the bar, or a ring of pesto sauce painted around a bowl of redfish with artichoke ravioli and cream sauce, punctuated with a perfect lemon note. Restaurant week: Dinner and lunch takeout only.

Rise No. 1


50 Best Restaurants, Best Brunch

This charming souffle-centric bistro is already a favorite spot for the ladies who lunch. The interior is a knockout; one-of-a-kind fine linens and European flatware are all for sale. The menu has a dozen soufflés, both sweet and savory, plus salads, sandwiches, entrées, and a cheese cart. Nice wine-by-the-glass list. Specifically Rise No. 3, meaning the Fort Worth location, will be participating. Restaurant week: Preview weekend, lunch, dinner ($39), dinner takeout.

Overeasy


Best of Big D 2018: Best Breakfast, 50 Best Restaurants

The Statler laid a golden egg with this hotel restaurant. Graham Dodds, whose chef’s touches had been denied us since Wayward Sons closed, launched this kitchen, sending out perfect omelets: clouds of eggs and Parmesan that have formed a spiritual pact with finely chopped chives. Biscuits—flaky, bronzed, with buttery heft—are receptive to the graces of a light cream gravy. We needed this: a cheerful, all-day breakfast spot downtown. Restaurant week: Preview weekend, lunch, lunch takeout.

Ocean Prime


The 10 Best Steakhouses in Dallas

You know they can deliver on seafood here, but Ocean Prime takes the second word in its name just as seriously, with steaks that come out hot. Restaurant week: Preview weekend, dinner ($49).

Nonna


50 Best Restaurants; Best of Big D: Best Pizza

At this charming, authentic Italian spot on the edge of Highland Park, chef-owner Julian Barsotti uses local, organic, and sustainable ingredients to produce everything from elegant lobster ravioli to a simple white pizza. There are usually 10 freshly made choices of pasta, and, thankfully, Barsotti offers a five-pasta tasting plate. The menu changes often, but the wood-burning oven always turns out thin-crust Neapolitan pizzas. Restaurant week: Dinner ($49), dinner takeout.

Billy Can Can Saloon


Best New Restaurants 2018

This latter-day saloon brings roguish fun to an upscale menu that includes the prettiest assortment of deviled eggs, served on a gilt-edged plate. Try crispy skate schnitzel topped with a gribiche of smoked farm egg or an extraordinary long-bone pork chop. Cocktails are shaken at impressive carved-wood backbar. Restaurant week: Dinner ($49), dinner takeout. Reach out to Billy Can Can for takeout options and availability.

The Capital Grille


The 10 Best Steakhouses in Dallas

The Capital Grille chain got its start in Rhode Island, but this outpost in The Crescent is all Dallas. When the wood-paneled and leather-upholstered throwback opened in 1998, it quickly became a second home for the office building’s lawyers and wealth managers, who stowed wine in rented cubbies and drank Stoli Dolis late into the night at the bar. Restaurant week: Preview weekend, dinner ($49). Dallas, Fort Worth, and Plano locations.

Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek


Best Brunches 2017; Best of Big D

The Mansion remains a place to celebrate 50 years of friendship or a significant birthday. There is an inherent weight to the venerable restaurant, even the mere mention of it. The “haute cuisine, Texas style” menu draws inspiration from local, seasonal flavors married with the refinement of French technique in dishes. Restaurant week: lunch, dinner ($49), dinner takeout.

Meddlesome Moth


Best Bars 2017; 100 Best Restaurants 2013

This stunning gastropub’s open kitchen turns out sharing plates, stick meats, salads, potpies, and items for “those who won’t share.” Beer? They say, “Chances are if you’ve seen it in a commercial, we don’t serve it.” Expect 40 on tap and more than 85 in bottles, all served by knowledgeable staff, which includes a certified cicerone and certified beer servers. Restaurant week: Preview weekend, dinner ($39).

Nick & Sam’s Steakhouse


The 10 Best Steakhouses in Dallas

If Frank Sinatra came to Dallas, this is where he would dine. You come to this hot Uptown spot for the well-heeled crowd and air of celebrity vertigo. A broad array of cuts with focused, professional service complements a high-rolling wine list. Restaurant week: email [email protected] to preorder curbside takeout only.

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