The Adolphus Hotel opened in 1912 and has been one of the defining addresses in downtown Dallas ever since — 114 years of history on Commerce Street, a Beaux-Arts façade with French Renaissance and Baroque detailing that still looks like nothing else in the city, and a dining legacy anchored by the French Room Bar, a sudden second place to the still closed formal French Room.
What most people don’t know is that there is now a second reason to go to the Adolphus for dinner, and it involves taking the elevator to the eighth floor, walking down a quiet hallway, and ringing a small brass doorbell next to a discreet plaque that reads “please ring bell for service.”
Behind that door is Sushi By Scratch Restaurants — a ten-seat omakase counter that started as a pop-up in December 2023 and liked Dallas enough to stay. Michelin-starred chefs Phillip Frankland Lee and Margarita Kallas-Lee built the concept in Los Angeles in 2017, starting literally in the office of their own restaurant, and have since opened ten speakeasy-style outposts across the country. The Montecito location earned a Michelin star in 2021 and again in 2022. The Dallas location at the Adolphus — permanent as of August 2024 — is one of the more unusual dining rooms in the city: a hotel room on the eighth floor converted into a candlelit lounge and sushi counter, with no sign outside, no foot traffic, and a reservation process that releases seats on the first of the month at noon for the following month. The entire opening month sold out in hours.
The format is straightforward once you’re inside. Guests are first received in a candlelit lounge with deep comfortable chairs, offered a palate-cleansing cocktail and two canapes. Then a sliding door opens, and the room reveals itself — a wooden rectangular sushi bar, ten seats, name placards at each one, a list of all 16 courses mounted on the wall behind the chefs. The courses come one at a time. Each is a single piece of nigiri — eaten whole, in one bite, as the chef intended. The fish is flown in daily. The soy sauce is house-fermented.
Lee’s signatures are built on an obsessive attention to the interaction between the rice, the fish, and whatever bridge ingredient he uses between them — a dab of sweet corn pudding under hamachi, sourdough breadcrumbs, preparations that have no precedent in conventional omakase but that work because the technique behind them is completely serious. Pastry chef Margarita Kallas-Lee handles the dessert courses and the pastry program. The beverage list runs cocktails, premium Japanese whisky, sake, and beer, all thoughtfully matched to the progression of the meal.
Ten seats. Two seatings a night. $165 per person plus an optional cocktail and sake pairing. The experience runs roughly two hours. It is one of the most distinctive dining experiences in Dallas — and one of the least known, which is either a problem or part of the appeal depending on your perspective. Reservations through Tock, released on the first of each month at noon. Open daily 4:30 to 11 p.m. inside The Adolphus Hotel, 1321 Commerce Street. Phone: (214) 272-2759.
