The Twelve Best Restaurants in Dallas

“I have the simplest taste,” said Oscar Wilde. “I am always satisfied with the best.”

The problem, of course, is determining what the best is. Toward that end, I check out virtually every new restaurant that opens, and regularly revisit established restaurants to see how they’re holding up.

A lot of restaurants, you’ll notice, don’t make the cut at all. D’s listings are extremely selective, on the theory that fair-to-middling fere may have its place, but that place is not in our listings. With limited space, we want to tell you about the places to eat in, not the places not to eat in.

Still, even within this context of general excellence, some restaurants stand out. Good restaurants serve good food; the best restaurants produce art you can eat, gustatory satori, poetry on a plate.

What’s more, they offer to their patrons a sense that at this moment there’s no better place to be on the planet. This ineffable quality-and the accompanying mysterious ability to shore up the spirits of patrons-does not necessarily correlate with priciness.

What follows, then, is not a roster of the twelve most expensive restaurants in the area. Instead, D’s Dozen (which follow in no particular order) offer maximum pleasure for the dollar, whether the tab runs to one figure or three.



THE MANSION ON TURTLE CREEK

The Mansion has no local competition in its melding of historic past and gastronomic future. In the golden glow of the restored, circa 1925 Shepard King mansion, Dean Fearing, Dallas’s version of Escoffier, turns out cutting-edge cuisine. New American Cuisine and its relative, New Southwestern Cuisine, are now imitated and appropriated to such an extent that it’s hard to remember that as recently as four years ago, hardly anyone in Dallas had even heard of the stuff. Fearing’s imaginative, regionally oriented cooking at the now-defunct Agnew’s was gastronom-ically ground-breaking in 1982. After a couple of post-Agnew’s moves, Fearing returned in 1985 to the Mansion (where he had once worked as a saucier) to refine its culinary plan of attack. Fear-ing’s attitude, as exemplified by the seasonally revised menu with daily specials, is the farthest thing from complacency: he seems always to be pushing the envelope of excellence. Standouts on the current summer menu: country-fried Texas quail with peanut pasta and creamy garlic sauce; Louisiana crab cakes with a sauce of smoked chiles, lobster, and blood orange; and grilled swordfish with Thai noodles and a mango, cucumber, melon, and lime sauce. Even side orders of vegetables are stylish surprises: jicama “hash browns,” for instance, or potato skins with red bell pepper ketchup. Two signature dishes that should not be missed: tortilla soup and crème brulée with raspberry sauce. Service, under the direction of Jean-Pierre Albertinetti, is skilled and responsive enough to do justice to the food and setting.

CAFE MARGAUX

Before Cafe Margaux opened on August 1, 1985, the only cure for Cajun cravings was to catch the next Southwest Airlines flight to New Orleans. These days, all it takes is a trip to Lovers Lane. Admittedly, the idea of an Indian chef turning out first-rate Cajun food in Dallas is unlikely. But Surinder Ratra’s work in Cafe Margaux’s kitchen makes believers out of the toughest customers. Because of his skill, Cafe Margaux is the only place in town where culinary purists are willing to essay the now infamous blackened redfish (counterfeit versions of which have been a menace on the dining scene ever since the dish’s originator, Paul Prudhomme, achieved celebrity status). All of the Cajun standards are here, and they’re all topnotch, including jambalaya (the best possible use of rice, chicken, sausage, shrimp, and green pepper) and crawfish, whether in the form of étouffée or of Cajun popcorn (fried crawfish tails) with sherry sauce. Not only does Cafe Margaux match New Orleans’s classic dishes, it has culinary moves all its own, such as entrées of pasta, shrimp, and Cajun sausage and crawfish and shrimp enchiladas con queso, a nod to the local taste for Tex-Mex. Salads are simple preludes to the business at hand, while desserts-including sweet potato pecan pie and a raisin-studded bread pudding with sugary bourbon sauce-wind matters up conclusively. The pleasingly plain setting offers no aesthetic thrills, but after all, there’s no need for the decor here to do anything but stay out of the way of the food. As for Cafe Margaux’s French-sounding name, proprietors Tom and Kay Agnew named their restaurant after their daughter, who is now a thriving nine-month-old.

CITY CAFE

The simplicity and straightforwardness of City Cafe’s name is matched by its food, which can best be described as sophisticated down-home. Its price range and level of ambition fill a long-vacant niche in Dallas dining-we’ve needed a restaurant that is excellent, unpretentious, and affordable on more than a once-a-year basis. Which is to say that while eating at City Cafe isn’t a production, it is an occasion. The menu changes weekly (on Wednesdays), a policy designed to hold the interest of regulars. Constants are a fresh, chunky tomato soup, a simple, sprightly green salad, and a perfectly sautéed fillet of sole. At lunch one can count on variations of omelettes, chicken salads, pot pies, and sandwiches. (A recent chicken salad du jour included leaf lettuce, orange slices, grapes, pineapple, sliced chicken, and Chinese noodles.) At dinner, there are always two or three seafood items, a pasta dish, a fowl preparation, and some form of beef. Accompanying vegetables vary, but they are always worth eating, something that cannot be said about the token veggies proffered by most restaurants. For dessert, the seasonal fruit crunch with custard sauce and vanilla ice cream is hard to pass up. City Cafe’s backers are amateurs, but it should be remembered that the meaning of amateur is one who loves, and this infant establishment (open only since January) is clearly the product of people who love food.

DEL FRISCO’S

Nothing can deter beef-eating Dallasites from getting their red-meat ration on a regular basis. And while top-quality beef can be had at Del Frisco’s competitors for the premium steak dollar- namely, the Palm and Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Del Frisco’s surpasses them in its dedication to the other non-steak elements of the meal. Shrimp rémoulade, for instance, makes for an appetizer nonpareil when it’s done right, which it is at Del Frisco’s (not surprising in light of the restaurant’s roots in New Orleans). Then there are the steaks. There’s not a bad bet among them, but the ribeye is the way to go if you’re interested in flavor, not just tenderness. Hands down, there is no greater carnivorous thrill to be had in town. (There are, incidentally, a few token veal and seafood entrees available at Del Frisco’s, but ordering them would be perverse.) Of the vegetables-all of which are served in immense quantities and many of which arrive blanketed with wall-to-wall cheddar cheese-the baked potato and fried onion rings are the standouts. The bread pudding, with raisins, grated coconut, and Jack Daniel’s sauce, rivals Cafe Margaux’s for best-in-town title. Proprietor Del Frisco is much in evidence on the plain, handsome premises, which have the feeling of a no-frills men’s club. Service is efficient and unpretentious.

CANTINA LAREDO

We all have our prejudices. One shared by many Mexican food enthusiasts hereabouts is that great Mex can only be found in grungy, time-worn establishments located in the vicinity of Maple Avenue. However, holding to this bias would mean missing the pleasures of Cantina Laredo, which is situated in a clean, new building in-yes-Addison. From the true believer’s selection of tequilas (including Tres Generaciones, which is the Mexican equivalent of fine cognac) to the gravely efficient waiters attired in guayaberas, it is plain that Cantina Laredo is a serious Mexican restaurant. With its concrete floor, mullioned windows, and low-key Mexican music, the place suggests, but does not parody, Mexico, and the food outshines anything I’ve had on trips across the border. You could begin with the botanas platter-which includes tacos al pastor, quesadillas, guacamole, grilled beef and shrimp, and stuffed jalapenos-but then you’d only get two tacos al pastor, and these tortillas filled with marinated pork, cilantro, onions, and salsa are so satisfying that at least one order of four is in order. Standard Tex-Mex combination plates are available at Cantina Laredo, and they’re quite good, but ordering them means missing the whole point, which is the comida casera-home-style food-not found in run-of-the-mill Mexican restaurants. Cabrito-that’s baby goat to you, gringo-isn’t found on many menus in town, and no one does it better than Cantina Laredo. (A good way to check out cabrito, if it’s new to you, is to order the mixed grill, a choice of two mesquite-grilled items-beef, chicken, shrimp, and cabrito.) There is plenty to keep the light-eating brigade happy here, too: both the mesquite-grilled shrimp with garlic butter and the red snapper with lime butter are transcendent treatments of seafood.



THE RIVIERA

If the maxim “Kissin’ don’t last; cookin’ do” is true, then David and Lori Holben have both fronts covered. The Riviera’s pair of twenty-seven-year-old co-chefs met at the Culinary Institute of America and worked together at Cafe Royal (where owner Franco Bertolasi was maitre d’) before coming to the Riviera in 1984 and tying the knot. What separates the Riviera from generic Gallic establishments is its specific focus on the food of the south of France (where both Holbens have worked). Perhaps it is the youthful exuberance of its chefs that distinguishes the Riviera in another way: although the food is of the highest quality, patrons never have the feeling that they are in a hushed temple of haute cuisine. Instead, the effect is one of relaxed liveliness, and the decor-with candles, roses, and Villeroy & Boch “Petite Fleur” china-has the air of a country inn in Provence. Highlights of the menu: bell pepper tart, a salty, assertive delight of roasted red and green bell peppers, onions, olives, and tomatoes; applewood-smoked quail salad with honey-mustard vinaigrette; French green bean and roquefort salad with walnut-oil dressing; grilled sword-fish with basil butter; salmon in a cream and tarragon sauce; veal chop with an apple and rosemary-flavored sauce; and last but far from least, warm apple tart with almond cream and caramel sauce.



THE GRAPE

Other restaurants are content simply to offer matchbooks as a mnemonic device for their customers. Not the Grape. The range of Grape paraphernalia-including several styles of T-shirts and a cookbook-suggests that what we have here is a way of life, not just a restaurant. (This view is confirmed when one sees the grape-cluster earrings worn by co-owner Charlotte Parker.) Since 1972, Kathy McDaniel and Charlotte Parker have run the Grape, together and in the same location. In this city of changing tastes and feuding business partners, this is something of a miracle. It’s also astonishing that an establishment that opened when wine by the glass and mushroom soup were exotic concepts has kept pace with the changing tastes of its customers. In fact, the cheese and pate’ offerings are no longer the main attraction; now, the daily specials are the ticket. Pasta and fish, those two favored foodstuffs of the last few years, are served here in such winning variations as linguine with duck breast Bolognese and salmon with lemon-lime beurre .blanc. The Grape’s setting-dark as a candle-lit dungeon, with red-checked tablecloths and touches of vinous kitsch-makes it an ideal hangout for Lower Greenville’s resident bohemian yuppies. The Grape continues in its no-reservation policy, but there is now valet parking on the weekends, which allows one to save the time that would be otherwise spent hiking in from the nearest parking spot available (usually somewhere around Abrams).



HIGHLAND PARK CAFETERIA

Connoisseurs of comfort food were given a scare when it was announced that the property on Knox Street that houses HPC (as devotees lovingly refer to it) had been sold to a real estate development company. Happily, however, according to the parties involved, there are no plans to shut down the original HPC, which has been in continuous operation on Knox Street since 1925 (it moved to its present location in 1973). Tradition, after all, is what HPC is really selling: although the occasional kiwi has been sighted in the salad section, by and large HPC has ignored the winds of culinary change, and its customers love its intransigence. Even those who wouldn’t dream of eating jello-based congeals want to know that these relics of Southern gastronomic history are there. In the end, it is stability that makes HPC a treasured local institution, from the Southern classics on the menu to the line staff, some of whom have been on the job for decades. As a result, standing in line, moving quickly or slowly (depending on the time of day) past the portraits of the presidents, is a ritual of unmatched resonance in Dallas dining. Even the concessions to technology are homey: on the video screens that efficiently display the daily menu, there is displayed a Bible verse du jour along with information about the employee of the month. Perhaps as a result, many regulars believe that heaven itself will resemble HPC, with hairnetted attendants querying, “Serve you?” and booths always available. The menu on cloud nine: fried chicken or chicken-fried steak, green beans, mashed potatoes and cream gravy, a jalapeno corn muffin, and cherry cobbler. You’ve noticed that no mention has been made of the Addison and downtown branches. There’s a reason: neither clone can reproduce the allure of the original Knox Street location.



SIAM

Dallas’s first Thai restaurant is still its best. Chad and Pam Armradit opened Siam in its original location in 1978. In recent years, other Thai restaurants have opened, but fens of Siam were desolated when the Armradits sold Siam. They reconsidered, however, and returned to the restaurant scene with the reborn Siam in a new location. The food is as terrific as ever; the only difference in the new Siam is that the diner is no longer frightened to get out of the car. (The old location was somewhat unsavory.) Now neophytes can fearlessly explore the wonders of Thai food, which combines the cooking methods of Chinese food, the freshness of Polynesian food, and the fieriness of Mexican food, but has a constellation of seasonings-coriander, lemon grass, lemon and lime juice, basil, mint, chiles, peanuts, and coconut milk-all its own. Siam’s greatest hits are moo satay (skewered, charbroiled pork strips with a mahogany-hued curry peanut sauce and a jalapeno-spiked cucumber salad), pud thai (a delicate dish of rice noodles sautéed with shrimp, pork, egg, chili pepper, Chinese radish, peanuts, sprouts, and green onion that is different every time you order it, but usually decorated with carrot flowers), and gang ped (a curry with bamboo shoots, coconut milk, and mint leaves, which can be ordered with chicken, shrimp, pork, or beef; chicken is best for soaking up the flavor of the sauce). Thai desserts have been known to weird out even the most adventurous diners, so it’s best to stick to iced coffee at meal’s end.

ROUTH STREET CAFE

It’s a safe bet that in 1983 no one at Gourmet or The New York Times had ever heard of one Stephan Pyles, who had no professional training and was working at the Bronx. Three years later, Pyles has entered the restaurant record books with the now nationally known Routh Street Cafe, which he opened with business partner John Dayton. The formula for fame: New American Cuisine with a pronounced Southwestern accent; a sleek, Tonny Foy-designed setting; and snappy, congenial service. The five-course, fixed-price menu ($42 as of this writing) is printed daily, but certain items-such as cornmeal catfish with smoked pepper-mint marigold sauce, lobster enchilada with red pepper crème fraiche, lamb with a pecan and garlic sauce, blackberry buckle, and apple-walnut spice cake-have become near-fixtures. In relatively short order, Routh Street Cafe has become a required stop on the foodie trail; when food-obsessed visitors come to town, this is the reservation they want.

CACHAREL

A restaurant situated on the ninth floor of an office building in Arlington seems like an unlikely source for first-rate French food. However, a restaurant situated on the ninth floor of an office building in Arlington under the direction of Jean-Claude Prevot, a long-time pillar of the local restaurant scene, is another story. (Prevot opened Jean-Claude, his namesake eating establishment in Dallas, in 1977, and closed it last August.) Like the late, great Jean-Claude, Cacharel offers food grounded in French classicism at fixed prices ($10 for lunch, $22 for dinner). Also like Jean-Claude, the menu changes daily and offers a nice balance of the traditional and the innovative, with such faultlessly prepared choices as spinach-pear soup, Boston lettuce salad with goat cheese, scallops with tarragon sauce, lamb with ginger sauce, beef au poivre, raspberry meringue, and crème caramel. However, Cacharel is not Jean-Claude West. One way in which Cacharel differs from its illustrious predecessor is in the demands it places upon diners’ short-term memory. Jean-Claude’s menu was recited by waiters, while Cacharel’s is printed, which means that recitation-impaired patrons do not have to embarrass themselves by asking waiters to run through the options du jour just one more time. The decor differs substantially from Jean-Claude’s dark, almost-claustrophobic setting. With its louvered windows and soft peach and green color scheme, Cacharel has a much lighter and more spacious feeling. All in all, Cacharel, which has been open only since June, promises to be Arlington’s first undeniably great eating establishment. That leaves just one question: what is the meaning of the restaurant’s name? A cacharel is a small wild duck in Southern France.

311 LOMBARDI’S

One of the longest-standing gripes of Dallas restaurant-goers was the lack of a restaurant with the combination of conviviality and splendid food required to make a great Italian eating establishment. Alberto Lombardi, a longtime fixture on the Dallas restaurant scene, remedied this situation in late 1985 by opening 311 Lombardi’s in the West End Historical District. Service and setting are both on the money-the first informal but never obnoxious, and the second lovely and casual, with subtle Italianate lighting, creamy apricot walls, silky black booths, and butcher paper-covered tables (complete with tumblers of crayons for doodling purposes). Neither service nor setting, of course, would be of much interest if the food weren’t remarkable. Fans of the baked-to-order focaccia bread, a fragrant, pizza-like bread topped with fresh rosemary and Parmesan cheese, are content to have it and salad or soup (specifically, the sage- and rosemary-sparked pasta and bean soup, which is enriched by the smoky flavor of pancetta) and call it quits. To do so, however, means missing such wonders as the gnocchi di patate, little potato dumplings that are works of carbohydrate virtuosity; costoletta alla Milanese, a massive, tender veal cutlet nicely counterpointed by vinaigrette-enlivened arugula and diced tomatoes; and pizza Contadina, a combination of leeks, pancetta, goat cheese, and mushrooms that is unparalleled in Western thought and can cure anything.