Fort Worth’s ultimate test of appetite and speed is back for a historic milestone. Riscky’s Barbeque—the legendary 99-year-old smokehouse staple—will host its landmark 20th annual Rib-Eating Competition at 11 a.m. on Saturday, July 25, at its Stockyards Station location at 140 East Exchange Avenue.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
For anyone who appreciates exceptional grilled meats, warm hospitality, and a dining experience that feels like an event, Villa Brazil has earned its reputation as one of the Dallas area’s standout Brazilian steakhouses. Rather than rushing guests through a meal, the restaurant encourages diners to settle in, enjoy the atmosphere, and savor a seemingly endless parade of expertly prepared meats carved tableside.
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Every neighborhood should be so lucky as to have its history hold the best corner. In Deep Ellum, that corner is 2551 Elm Street, where the Knights of Pythias Temple has stood since 1916, designed by William Sidney Pittman, Texas’ first Black architect and son-in-law of Booker T. Washington. It was the first commercial building in Dallas built by, for, and with the money of Black citizens, and for more than two decades it served as the social heart of Black Dallas — its top-floor ballroom hosting dances, graduations, and the Fisk Jubilee Singers, its lectern held by the likes of George Washington Carver, while out on the street below, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lead Belly were turning Deep Ellum into the blues capital of the Southwest.
Today the building carries its architect’s name as The Kimpton Pittman Hotel, and it remains the best argument in town that a building can change jobs without losing its soul.
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Fort Worth has kept a good thing mostly to itself for seven years. That ends this August, when the eighth annual Fort Worth Burger Week runs August 17 through 23 and Dallas finally gets a Burger Week of its own, held the same week, with the same beautifully simple premise: around 30 restaurants per city, each serving a specialty burger for $8.
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Set your alarms. The 30th annual DFW Restaurant Week reveals its full restaurant lineup tomorrow, Thursday, July 16, and reservations open the same day for what has grown into the region’s largest dining event and the second longest running restaurant week in the country.
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Nobody has actually reviewed Tony yet. Rotten Tomatoes has a page and no score. There’s no wide critical consensus, no embargo lift, nothing but a trailer, a featurette, and one room full of chefs who got to see it early. So take this for what it is: a bet, not a verdict. But it’s an informed bet, and after two decades writing about the people this movie is trying to honor, I’ve got opinions.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Somewhere up Preston Road, past the point where the restaurants start repeating themselves, a tavern called Bit of Grub is having more fun than anyone else on the strip. The menu alone earns the visit before a single plate lands.
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Swiss Avenue at Good-Latimer has turned into its own small entertainment district over the past few years, and Saaya is the corner of it built for staying put. The Mediterranean lounge from Milkshake Concepts sits next door to its sibling Citizen, and the two make an instructive pair. The nightclub runs on volume. Saaya runs on languor, all low seating and hookah smoke drifting across the patio, a room engineered to make three hours feel like one.
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