The building at 3219 Knox Street served people for more than a hundred years as the Highland Park Soda Fountain — milkshakes, grilled cheese, a landmark three generations of Park Cities families took for granted. It closed in 2018 when a 12-story office tower went up around it. The facade was preserved. Everything else changed.
What went in was Mister Charles. Duro Hospitality — founded by Chas Martin, Benji Homsey, J Chastain, and brothers Corbin and Ross See — built the most ambitious restaurant in their portfolio inside that landmarked shell. Martin started as a kitchen intern at Nick & Sam’s, was moved to front of house almost immediately, and was general manager of one of the highest-grossing restaurants in Texas by 25. He and Homsey eventually built Duro into one of Dallas’s most recognized groups.
Mister Charles is their peak so far: Michelin-recommended, the sole DFW entry on OpenTable’s 2025 Top 100 Restaurants in America list, and winner of the Michelin Guide Texas 2025 Exceptional Cocktails Award.
The room makes the case before the food arrives. Thirty-eight-foot ceilings. Three-story columns. A long marble bar. Trompe l’oeil ceiling. The design splits into two personalities — a bright “heaven” side preserving the old soda fountain’s energy and a dark, moody “hell” side with a tucked-away four-seat bar. Servers wear monogrammed blazers or double-breasted vests with ascots. The China is monogrammed too — MC with a devil and angel at center.
The menu is French and Italian in its bones. Start with the canapés. The lobster roll on a petite brioche bun is a two-bite version of the best thing about summer in Maine. The foie gras croquette is crisp, rich, gone too fast. The egg salad sandwich with caviar makes you reconsider what egg salad can be. The corn and truffle beignets are dangerous — order one round and you’ll want another.
Pasta earns its own section. The uni shells carbonara with pancetta and bottarga ($32) has become a signature — sea urchin in a carbonara framework, the bottarga adding a cured, saline depth that doesn’t appear anywhere else on the menu. The fusilli with caviar and fontina is the unapologetic luxury option. The spicy lumache arrabbiata and lobster uni pasta fill out a list short enough to mean something.
The Dover sole is the dish people talk about. A whole fish, filleted tableside, served with lobster beurre blanc — a sauce rich and precise enough to turn a simple preparation into a statement. Dover sole is one of the most unforgiving fish in European cuisine, delicate and merciless to any kitchen that treats it carelessly. At $109, it is the most expensive fish on the menu and the one that justifies its price most clearly. Filleting it tableside isn’t theater for its own sake — it’s the correct way to handle the fish, keeping the flesh intact at the right temperature. Order it if you’re going once and want to understand what this kitchen can do.
The Texas wagyu beef Wellington is the other tableside production — carved at the table, serves two to three easily. Steaks run from an 8-oz. filet at $79 upward. The chicken nuggets are a deliberate bit of irreverence and better than they have any right to be. Desserts close the night in kind: the baked Alaska torched tableside, and the soda fountain sundae — hot fudge, whipped cream, sprinkles, peanuts, cherries — a direct nod to the building’s history. It reads like a joke. It doesn’t taste like one.
Mister Charles is at 3219 Knox Street, Suite 170. Open Sunday through Thursday 4:30 to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday 4:30 to 11 p.m. Reservations on OpenTable or (469) 917-9000. Dress accordingly.
