Sophia Adisson is not a chef by training. She spent years working as a project manager, and she will tell you that freely. Her mother owned restaurants in Haiti, and Adisson grew up in those kitchens — watching, cooking alongside her, learning what it meant to feed people well. She moved to Dallas in 2015 and eventually did something about it. Arôme, her restaurant in McKinney, is the result.
The name means aroma in French. The restaurant is inside the Adriatica complex at 6815 Virginia Parkway — a Mediterranean-styled development that turns out to be a reasonable fit for a Caribbean kitchen. The space runs 3,000 square feet, seats around 140 indoors, and spills onto a large patio with a hookah bar that holds another hundred. Velvet teal chairs, bright orange bar stools, and on a Friday night with a DJ running afrobeats and R&B, it is unlike anything else up in the northern suburbs.
The menu is Caribbean at its core but covers a lot of ground. Adisson was deliberate about that — she wanted a place where anyone could walk in and find something they recognized, which in McKinney means a wide menu. So alongside the Haitian dishes she grew up eating, there are chicken and waffles, burgers, healthy bowls, tacos, and poutine. It works better than it sounds on paper, because the cooking underneath it all comes from the same place.
Start with whatever is braised. The queue de bœuf is slow-braised oxtail in a rich gravy with tender potatoes and glazed baby carrots — the kind of dish that takes most of a day to make and tastes exactly like it. This is the cooking Adisson’s mother passed down, and it shows. The tassot cabrit is fried goat, Caribbean-spiced and golden-crisp, served with plantains and aromatic rice. It takes some confidence to put goat on a menu in suburban Dallas, and the people who order it don’t regret it. The whole red snapper comes rubbed in Caribbean spices, fried whole, and plated with plantains, rice, mango salsa, and a spicy sauce. When a kitchen sends out a whole fried fish, you can usually tell pretty quickly whether they know what they’re doing. This one does.
For something more casual, the pulled pork sandwich — slow-smoked, topped with tangy barbecue sauce and crisp slaw on a toasted brioche bun — is a solid lunch. Lunch specials run $10 to $18 and include vegan options. Dinner entrees run $25 to $50, so it’s not a Tuesday night burger spot, but it’s also not somewhere you need a special occasion to justify going.
Brunch runs Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Order the rhum banana French toast. It’s the dish that tells you the most about what Adisson is doing here — tropical, rich, and built from flavors she has eaten her whole life. The shrimp and grits and steak and eggs fill out a brunch menu that gives you a good reason to drive up there on a weekend morning.
One more reason to get there this summer: Haiti qualified for the 2026 World Cup, its first appearance in 52 years. Adisson is planning watch parties with all games on big screens, and the energy in that room when Haiti plays is going to be worth showing up for on its own.
Arôme Caribbean Fusion & Lounge is at 6815 Virginia Parkway, Suite 300, in McKinney inside the Adriatica complex. Hours are Sunday 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Brunch is served Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. More at aromerestaurant.com.
