Parliament opened in August 2014 in the old Four Lounge space on 2418 Allen Street, in the State Thomas Historic District, and more than a decade later it is still the same low-lit, red-walled room where Eddie “Lucky” Campbell built his name pouring drinks most bartenders would need a cheat sheet to remember.
This is not a dinner spot. Parliament does not run a kitchen, and there is no food menu to speak of, so if the plan is a full night out, eat first and treat this as the place you land afterward. What you are walking into is a cocktail list more than fifty deep, split into categories with names like Original Gangsters, Aguamiel, and Dark Side of the Moon, and a bar staff that has been building this kind of drink for so long it looks effortless.
The Barrel Aged Old Fashioned is where most people start, bourbon rested in American oak with sugar, Angostura, and orange zest, and it is a fair introduction to how the whole menu thinks. The Lucky Mule, gin with lime, mint, ginger beer, and Angostura, is the house riff on a drink most bars stopped trying to improve on years ago. For something with more theater, the Smoking Gun takes that same Barrel Aged Old Fashioned and smokes it with cherry wood at the table, and the Pistachio Ramos Fizz, built with pistachio gin, lemon, cream, orange blossom, egg white, and club soda, is as close as this city gets to the real New Orleans version done right.
If cheese and whiskey sound like an odd pairing for a cocktail, the Devil Has Dimples proves the point anyway, a manchego fat-washed Toki finished with truffle honey and a mist of lavender. It should not work. It does.
Weekend strategy matters here because Parliament does not take reservations and does not take phone calls, a policy Lucky has held onto since the day he opened. Show up, especially on a Friday or Saturday after nine, and expect to wait for a seat at the bar or one of the leather booths. The patio overlooking the State Thomas neighborhood is worth angling for if the weather is behaving.
Happy hour runs all day on Monday, five to eight on Tuesday through Saturday, and any time it starts raining, which is as close to a party trick as a cocktail bar’s pricing policy gets. A 20 percent gratuity is added to every check, so factor that in before the tab comes.
Parliament is open daily from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. at 2418 Allen Street. Full drink menu and hours are at parliamentdallas.com. For more on where to drink around the city, see CraveDFW’s neighborhood bar guide.
