by | November 6, 2026 · 7:00 am

The Friday Edition: A Grapevine Smashburger, Graham Elliot’s Fort Worth Move and Hunky’s at 42

CraveDFW

The Friday Edition · November 6, 2026

The Texas Wagyu Smashburger at Sauce'd in Grapevine

Hi everyone,

The first cool mornings of the season finally showed up this week, and the weekend calendar filled up right along with them. The Greek Food Festival of Dallas turns 71, Chefs For Farmers is back at Old City Park, and Greenville has two days of western swing fiddle.

The two stories you read most this week were a smashburger in Grapevine and Graham Elliot, who is finally opening a restaurant of his own in Fort Worth. Both lead off this issue.

One more for your calendar. The Piehole Project auction opens Monday at 9 a.m., with 32 chefs baking 33 one-of-a-kind pies you can bid on in time for Thanksgiving.

In this issue: the Sauce’d smashburger, Graham Elliot’s Commodore Tavern, Hunky’s at 42, Guest House, baked Alaska, and a weekend that runs from the Greek Food Festival to Chefs For Farmers.

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by | November 5, 2026 · 1:34 pm

Foie Gras Snickers and Crab Rangoon Pie: The Piehole Project Auction Is Back

Abraham Salum

Somewhere in Dallas right now, a chef is figuring out how to fit a Snickers bar and foie gras into the same crust. Another is turning crab rangoon into a pie. A third is folding okra into white chocolate cream, on purpose. It’s pie season, and The Piehole Project is back.

The sixth annual Piehole Project online auction runs November 9 through 19, and this year 32 of the area’s best chefs are baking 33 one-of-a-kind pies for the cause. Bidding opens Monday, November 9 at 9 a.m. and closes Thursday, November 19 at 8 p.m. You can register and bid here.

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by | November 5, 2026 · 1:14 pm

The Best Dishes to Order at Selda Dallas

Beef Roll

Selda Dallas started as a neighborhood Turkish restaurant at 6006 Belt Line Road, and it has since grown into a family of restaurants that includes The Mayor’s House by Selda in Oak Cliff plus locations in Frisco, Las Colinas and San Antonio. Habip Kargin, one of Selda’s chef-owners, once led the Pera restaurants in Dallas, and his kitchen still centers on the charcoal grill. The menu is long, so here’s where to start.

Open with dips for the table. The Hummus and the smoky Grilled Eggplant Salad are the classics, but the one to order is the Spicy Ezme, minced tomatoes and peppers with hot spices, garlic, lemon and pomegranate molasses. Add the Cigar Borek, flaky pastry rolls stuffed with feta and fried, and the Halloumi Cheese, lightly fried and set on roasted peppers and walnuts with a drizzle of pomegranate molasses.

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by | November 5, 2026 · 12:52 pm

The Bloom Lounge in Plano Serves Brunch Every Day of the Week

Most brunch spots make you wait for the weekend. The Bloom Lounge in Plano serves brunch every day of the week, starting at 9 a.m., in a dining room hung with flowers that looks ready for a bridal shower even on a Tuesday. It sits in a shopping center at 6145 Windhaven Parkway, Suite 120 and on weekends the tables fill with friends and birthday groups.

The place has a sweet backstory. Owner Jorge Saab built his name on rum cakes first, with Rum Cakes Factory in the same plaza, and opened The Bloom Lounge right alongside it in January 2024. You can see the connection on the menu, where the specialty pancakes are credited to Rum Cakes Factory.

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by | November 5, 2026 · 12:28 pm

Baked Alaska Is Back, and Here’s Where to Find It in DFW

Baked Alaska shouldn’t work. You put ice cream in a hot oven, or hold a torch to it, and it doesn’t melt. The trick is the meringue. All those beaten egg whites trap air, and air is a lousy conductor of heat, so the outside browns while the ice cream inside stays frozen solid on its cake base. It’s a little kitchen physics dressed up as a party.

The name goes back to New York’s Delmonico’s. The story is that the restaurant named the dessert to honor the United States buying Alaska from Russia in 1867, though Delmonico’s own early version went by a better name, Alaska, Florida, for the hot-and-cold trick at its center. Baked Alaska had its big run on mid-century dinner party menus and cruise ships, then mostly disappeared. Lately it’s back, and a handful of North Texas kitchens are doing it right.

Delilah
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by | November 5, 2026 · 12:08 pm

Pete’s Cafe in Farmers Branch Still Cooks Like It’s Your Grandmother’s Kitchen

Pete’s Cafe sits in a strip center at 3610 Belt Line Road, right about where Farmers Branch runs into Addison and Carrollton. It opens at 6 a.m. seven days a week, closes at 2 p.m., and a good share of the room orders before the menu hits the table. Coffee shows up fast and keeps flowing. Plates land heavy.

The cafe sums itself up as homemade food, served hot. The kitchen backs that up. Chicken fried steak, biscuits and gravy, catfish and cinnamon rolls are made from scratch every day.

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by | November 5, 2026 · 11:02 am

The Greek Food Festival of Dallas Turns 71 This Weekend

For one weekend every fall, the corner of Hillcrest and Alpha smells like charred lamb and warm honey. The Greek Food Festival of Dallas returns Friday through Sunday, November 6 to 8, on the grounds of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church at 13555 Hillcrest Road. This is the 71st year, and it runs rain or shine.

It started small. In 1955, the women of the parish held a modest bazaar, and it grew, year by year, into what you see now. Those women belonged to Philoptochos, the church’s charitable society, and Philoptochos is still behind the pastries today. When you buy a box of sweets on the way out, you’re buying from the same tradition that started all of this.

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by | November 5, 2026 · 8:36 am

Luby’s Is Still Here, and So Is the LuAnn

If you grew up in Texas, you probably remember the tray. Brown plastic, a little damp from the stack, and way too much room for a kid with big eyes. You slid it down the rails at Luby’s past the Jell-O cubes and the pies, and somewhere around the fried fish your grandmother told you to pick one dessert. One.

Bob Luby opened the first Luby’s in downtown San Antonio in 1947, and for a long stretch of the last century it was where Texas went after church, after funerals, after report cards. The line on Sunday could stretch to the door. Nobody minded much. You could see the food the whole time you waited, and that was half the fun.

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