The French Room Bar Throws Off Vibes from Another Era

A note before we go further. The French Room itself — the grand gilded dining room that earned its reputation over generations — remains closed for dinner. It still hosts afternoon tea and the occasional holiday service, but if you are picturing a full evening inside that baroque space, set the expectation aside for now.

What is open, and what Dallas should be paying attention to, is the French Room Bar next door. This is a separate, smaller room inside The Adolphus, and it is where the serious eating and drinking is happening right now.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under Steven Doyle

A Burger That Hides in Plain Sight: The Cottage

The Cottage sits on Northwest Highway in that stretch near Bachman Lake where the signs have been peeling for decades and nobody minds. It is a dive bar in the real sense of the word. Pool table, live blues a few nights a week, bikes lined up out front, a patio where people actually talk to each other. You do not go for atmosphere curated by a consultant. You go because it is what it is.

What surprises people is the burger.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under Steven Doyle

The Good Stuff: Donuts Around DFW

There is a particular quiet that settles over a donut shop before the rush. The fryer hums, the glaze drips, and someone in the back is sliding a tray into the case that will be half empty in twenty minutes. Dallas has a lot of these mornings happening all over the map right now, and the scene has grown up considerably in the last decade. We lost a few icons along the way, but what replaced them is more interesting than what we had before.

Here is where to go when the craving hits, from a chef-driven brioche operation in Trinity Groves to a fifth-generation strip-mall staple where the glazed are still warm at six in the morning.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under Steven Doyle

Richardson Has a Pizza Secret and It’s Time to Tell It

There is a pizzeria in Richardson that most people drive right past. No sign on the building, no marquee, no indication from the street that anything remarkable is happening inside. Just a small space at 514 Lockwood Drive, next door to Lockwood Distilling, where Maen Azzam and Sonia Khan are making some of the most serious Neapolitan pizza in North Texas.

The place is called Farina in Grani. It opened in November 2024 and came out of the pandemic the way a lot of the best food businesses do — from boredom and obsession. Khan started baking during lockdown, moved on to pizza, made it for family and friends, then catered events with a portable oven, then decided to do it for real. The name means “flour in grains” and refers to the whole-grain wheat flour they use in the dough — germ, bran, and endosperm together — which gives the crust its signature golden color and a depth of flavor you don’t get from refined flour.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under Steven Doyle

How to Spend Cinco de Mayo in Dallas — With and Without the Tequila

A quick note before we get into it: Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day. That’s September 16. May 5 commemorates the Mexican army’s unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla in 1862 — one battle in a longer war, but one that became a lasting symbol of resistance and resilience. Dallas celebrates it with genuine enthusiasm, a serious margarita culture, and enough options to fill an entire week. Here’s how to make sense of it all.

May 5 falls on a Tuesday this year, which means the celebrating starts the weekend before and builds from there. Plan accordingly.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under Steven Doyle

Dos Mares Brings Mexico’s Coastlines to Fort Worth

Arrachera 

Fort Worth already has one of the best Mexican restaurants in North Texas. Now it has two, and they share a wall.

Dos Mares opened last November at 3260 W. 7th St., right next door to Don Artemio in the Cultural District. Both restaurants come from the same family — chef Juan Ramón Cárdenas and his son Rodrigo, who serves as culinary director for both. Don Artemio, which opened in 2022 and earned a James Beard Award nomination the following year, draws from the interior and northeast regions of Mexico. Dos Mares goes somewhere else entirely: the coast.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under Steven Doyle

Shirley Chung Was Told She’d Never Taste Again, Then She Opened a Restaurant in Dallas

In May 2024, doctors told Shirley Chung that the best chance of saving her life was removing her tongue. She said no.

Chung had just been diagnosed with stage 4 squamous cell carcinoma — tongue cancer that had already spread to her lymph nodes. She was 47. She had built a career around taste, around the specific memory of her grandmother’s cooking in Beijing, around 20 years of working kitchens alongside Thomas Keller, Guy Savoy, and José Andrés. Two runs on Top Chef, a devoted following in Los Angeles, restaurants she had poured herself into. Losing her tongue was not something she was willing to accept.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under Steven Doyle

Barcelona Wine Bar Is Doing Brunch Right on Knox-Henderson

Most brunch menus feel like an afterthought — a few egg dishes bolted onto a dinner concept to fill weekend seats. Barcelona Wine Bar on Miller Avenue didn’t do that. Their Saturday and Sunday brunch runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and gives you the full tapas menu alongside dishes built specifically for the morning, which means you can order olive oil pancakes with cinnamon butter and a plate of gambas al ajillo at the same time. Nobody is stopping you.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under Steven Doyle