The Design District keeps stacking up new restaurants like it has something to prove, and at this point it basically does. Carbone, Delilah, Ospi, Maroma — the neighborhood has become its own dining destination in a way that would have been hard to predict five years ago. Alára, the new modern Mediterranean from Turkish-born chef Onur Akan, opened quietly into all of that noise about three weeks ago, and it may be the most personal restaurant in the bunch.
Akan grew up in Samsun, on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, in a multigenerational household where the sofra — the communal table — was the center of daily life. He came to Dallas, spent years cooking for private clients through his company Chef Akan Experiences, and served as executive chef at Nonna, one of the city’s most respected Italian kitchens. All of that time in high-end kitchens where nothing could be rushed or approximate is what shaped Alára. He describes it as that same standard of care, finally given a room.
The name means “she who brings joy.” That is not an accident either.
The space is at 1628 Oak Lawn Ave., Suite 120, in the former Pakpao Thai location. One wall is covered in personal photographs — Akan’s parents’ wedding in Turkey in 1981, childhood friends, family gatherings. It sets the tone. This is someone cooking from a real place, not a concept document. The room is bright in the early evening and moves toward candlelight as the night goes on, the kind of place where you order a glass of wine and suddenly an hour has passed.
The menu is intentionally shorter than you might expect. Akan made that choice deliberately, and it shows in the execution. You start with mezze — six of them, meant to be ordered in multiples and eaten with vegetables or ripped strips of pita. Caramelized onion hummus, marinated olives, whipped feta with sun-dried tomatoes. Nothing here is trying to impress you with novelty. It is trying to be genuinely good, and it is.
From there the menu moves into what Akan calls “little loves” — shareable bites that sit between the mezze and the main courses. The halloumi en croûte at $18 is a rectangle of warm cheese sealed in a handmade pastry and finished with honey. It is more indulgent than most things on the menu and worth every calorie. Charred broccolini comes in at $18, grilled romano beans at $16. These are the kinds of dishes that sound simple until you eat them and realize how much restraint it takes to make a vegetable taste that clean and that good.
Salads here are substantial enough to anchor a light dinner on their own. The Green Goddess Caesar at $18 uses gem lettuce, parmigiano, crispy anchovies, pistachio, and pickled red onion — fried anchovies in place of croutons, green goddess dressing in place of Caesar. It reads like a Caesar in name only and works completely on its own terms. The Alára Panzanella layers sourdough crisps, Persian cucumber, heirloom tomato, grilled lemon, smashed Castelvetrano olives, feta, and a tomato-jus vinaigrette. There is also a seasonal squash salad with arugula, pickled cherry, orange segments, sliced almonds, pecorino, and a lemon-sherry vinaigrette.
The signature dish, the one the room is already built around, is a Turkish coffee-crusted Wagyu hanger steak at $55 served with potato pavé — a French technique where thinly sliced potatoes are pressed and cooked over two days into a dense, silky block. That combination of Turkish pantry and French precision is a good summary of who Akan is as a cook. There is also a pan-seared market fish finished with a saffron and rose water beurre blanc — one of those preparations that sounds overwrought on paper and arrives at the table tasting inevitable. A beef and lamb roulade with charred cabbage and tomato fonduta rounds out the larger plates alongside a vegan lion’s mane mushroom “steak” at $32 that is getting taken seriously by people who are not vegan.
Everything on the menu can be modified for vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free diets, and Akan has said publicly that the food is designed to make you feel good the next morning — no seed oils, nothing heavy for the sake of it. Whether or not that matters to you, the food lands lightly, which is not always something you can say about a restaurant this serious.
Dessert is the deconstructed baklava — mille-feuille crust, pistachio crémeux, lemon curd, honey crème fraîche, and a za’atar pistachio crumble. It is the dish people are leaving reviews about. Go back and read that component list one more time and then try to tell us you are skipping it.
Akan has been open about what he is building against. He told the Dallas Morning News he wants to push back on the “aggressive energy in the Dallas dining scene,” where dinner feels like a performance. The luxury at Alára, he said, is not lobster and caviar. It is warm hospitality. Nine straight five-star OpenTable reviews since opening suggests that is landing exactly the way he intended.
Currently open for dinner Wednesday through Monday, 5 to 10 p.m. Lunch service is coming, with a more casual European café-style menu of mezze, doner kebab, sandwiches, and salads. Reservations at alaradtx.com.
