Jackson Kalb was 13 years old the first time he walked into a real kitchen. Not his family’s kitchen — his parents, by his own admission, were not good home cooks. The kitchen he walked into was Mélisse in Santa Monica, a two-Michelin-star French restaurant, and he was there because a guest at one of his backyard catering gigs happened to know the chef. That chef was Josiah Citrin. He let the kid in.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Most people don’t think about Plano when they’re planning a serious dinner. That’s their mistake, and Jashan is the reason to correct it.
The restaurant opened quietly at 7401 Lone Star Drive in Legacy North a few months back, and what’s happening inside is unlike anything else in North Texas. The man behind it, Prasanna Singaraju, spent years in tech before he walked away from all of it to do this. He’d been standing in a parking garage near the Dallas North Tollway, staring at an empty retail space, imagining what it could become. That’s not a metaphor. He actually stood there and pictured the restaurant. Now it exists.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
The tortilla is the first thing you need to understand about Molino Olōyō. Not the filling, not the protein, not the salsa. The tortilla. That’s where this whole operation begins, and once you taste one, you’ll understand why chef Olivia López has spent the last five years obsessing over it.
Continue readingFiled under Crave
If you’re looking for a reason to get out on May 5th and don’t want to fight a generic margarita crowd, Vaqueros Texas Bar-B-Q in Allen is running $5 specials all day and actually has the food to back it up.
The deal is simple: $5 margaritas, $5 tacos, $5 palomas, and $5 beers from open to close on Monday, May 5th. The beer selection includes Victoria, Modelo, El Chingón, and house picks. Not a limited window, not just during happy hour — all day long at their Watters Creek location.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Mother’s Day falls on Sunday, May 10 this year, and if you haven’t made a reservation, now is the time. Restaurants across Dallas-Fort Worth are pulling out the good stuff — prix fixe menus, skyline views, afternoon teas, and a few places that don’t even open on Sundays making an exception. Here’s what’s happening.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Cinco de Mayo falls on a Monday this year, which means the weekend before it is fair game for the kind of day-drinking that the holiday was practically invented to justify. Dallas has its answer ready. The Dallas Margarita Festival lands at The Village Dallas on Saturday, May 2, and the premise is as simple as it is dangerous: ten margarita pours, one vote, one winner.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
If you have spent any time in New York and wandered into one of those rooms on the Upper East Side or in the West Village where the espresso is perfect and the pastel-colored cakes look like they came from a set designer’s dream, you already know Sant Ambroeus. If you have not, you are about to get a proper introduction. The celebrated Milanese hospitality group is opening its first Texas location on Knox Street in Dallas, and it is the kind of announcement that makes the city sit up a little straighter.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
There is a shop on Oak Lawn that has been quietly running one of the best cheese counters in the country for going on seventeen years, and most of Dallas still drives past it without stopping. That is their loss. Scardello sits at 3511 Oak Lawn Avenue in a 1929 building with wood floors, an original tin ceiling, exposed brick walls, and enough natural light that the cheese case practically glows. It is the type of place that makes you slow down the moment you walk in, because the person behind the counter is genuinely happy to talk about what is in front of you, and that is not something most food retail in Dallas offers anymore.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
