Dallas has always had good bars. What it has right now is something more specific — a cocktail scene that’s earning national attention, with a handful of rooms that are genuinely doing something interesting. Whether you’re looking for a statement night out, a well-made drink at a reasonable price, or a cold pint in a room with character, here’s where to go this weekend.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
If you are going to spend a Saturday afternoon in Dallas in July, you want shade, something cold in your hand, food that encourages you to stay, and a room that doesn’t feel like it’s trying too hard. Paradiso in Bishop Arts checks every one of those boxes and then keeps going.
Continue readingFiled under Crave, Steven Doyle
There’s a specific type of evening that Dallas does well and doesn’t talk about enough. You’re at the bar. There’s a good martini in front of you. The room is the right amount of loud. And instead of committing to a full dinner, you order two or three things to share and make a proper night of it. The restaurants that understand this format — that a great bar bite is its own art form, not a consolation prize for not getting a table — are the ones worth knowing.
Here’s where to go and what to order.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Far Out Dallas sits in a converted Quonset hut in the Cedars, just south of downtown. The space feels deliberate and not restrained—warm lighting, terracotta tones, cactus-lined corners, and a bar that pulls attention the moment you walk in. It is led by operators Caroline Lee and James Lee, with chef Misti Norris directing the kitchen.
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Most people don’t know what a botanería is. That’s fine. Go to Sor Juana and you’ll figure it out in about five minutes.
The concept is Mexican in origin and as old as the idea of a neighborhood bar. In a traditional botanero, your drinks come with food — not food you order separately, not food with an upcharge, just small plates that arrive alongside whatever you’re drinking. Botanas. Bar bites. The Mexican cousin of tapas, built on the same logic that says drinking and eating together is not indecision but civilization. The tradition is deeply social, deeply rooted in Mexican cantina culture, and almost entirely absent from Dallas until now.
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Most bars at Mockingbird Station are built for convenience — you go because it’s there and the evening is already in motion. The People’s Last Stand is a different proposition. The craft cocktail bar at 5319 East Mockingbird Lane, Suite 210 opened in 2010 with a single guiding principle — provide Dallas with a place for cocktail enthusiasts who care about what’s actually in the glass — and fifteen years later that principle is still running the operation.
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Summer in Dallas is not for the timid. It is hot, it is relentless, and it demands a game plan. If you are hosting a pool party this season, the smartest thing you can do is stop trying to play bartender the whole afternoon and make one great batch cocktail that does the work for you. Then fill a tray with a few things people will actually talk about. Here is our version of a proper Crave-worthy pool day.
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Preston Center has been missing a rooftop bar for about twenty years. CRAFT Restaurant & Beer Market showed up on April 1 and fixed that, along with a few other things the neighborhood did not know it needed.
The concept started in Calgary in 2011, built by PJ L’Heureux into nine Canadian locations before he decided Dallas was where to make the American move. His partner here is Tom Gaglardi — owner of the Dallas Stars, the man who brought Moxie’s to Dallas years ago and knows how to read this market. The two of them landed at 5974 W. Northwest Highway in the old medical office space across from the Starbucks on Kate Street, gutted it, and built a 10,500-square-foot room with a 360-degree bar at the center and 5,250 square feet of rooftop patio on top. The rooftop is one of the first of that size in Preston Center. On a clear May evening it is the best outdoor seat in this part of Dallas.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
