Torry Cray and Adrian Verdin (we’ve followed Verdin through his hospitality career and he’s a keeper) have been on quite a run. Three restaurants in one year, all under the Café Olivia name, and this one might be the most interesting of the bunch. Café Olivita opens in early October at Park Center in Plano, and it’s not just a smaller version of the original. It’s Café Olivia rethinking what it means to serve an office building.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Hudson House started as one restaurant in Highland Park. It’s about to open its twelfth, and this time it’s landing in Southlake, a city that says a lot about how far this brand has traveled from its first neighborhood spot.
The new location opens Friday, September 11, at 1131 E. Southlake Blvd., roughly 5,000 square feet of the same East Coast sensibility Hudson House built its name on, just with more room to stretch out. Hudson House comes from Vandelay Companies, the Dallas group founded by Hunter Pond, and Pond isn’t shy about why growth here has been slow and deliberate rather than fast. He picked Southlake for its energy and its appetite for real hospitality, and he’s said the goal was never just adding another location to a map. It was making sure every Hudson House feels like it’s always belonged to its block.
Continue readingFiled under Crave, Steven Doyle
Somewhere between a wall of guitar pedals and a suspicious number of vintage synths, Giovanni Alvizo and Carson Olivarez decided two people could sound like a full band, and mostly, they’re right. That’s Neon Swami: a Dallas indie duo built on reverb thick enough to lean on, chorus effects doing more emotional labor than most bands manage with a whole rhythm section, and synths that sound plucked straight out of a decade nobody in the room actually lived through.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Ask ten people what they ordered at Bar Sardine last week and at least four of them will say a burger, in a French bistro built around escargot and steak Diane. Nobody planned it that way. That’s just what happened once people started eating there.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Misti Norris made a list that only twenty chefs in the country land on this year, and anyone who’s eaten her food lately isn’t surprised.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
S&D Oyster Company turns 50 on September 16, and it’s throwing itself an anniversary week worth planning around. The Uptown seafood spot has been serving the same stretch of McKinney Avenue since 1976, and five decades in one location is rare enough on its own to be worth celebrating properly.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Every serious Dallas eater has a running list like this one, dishes they’d order again without hesitation, the ones that make a whole reservation worth booking. Some of these plates come with decades of history attached. Others are newer, but they’ve already earned the loyalty regulars don’t hand out easily. What they share is simple: walk into any of these seven restaurants, order the dish below, and you’ll understand exactly why it made the cut. No second-guessing the menu required.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Two years is a long time for a restaurant to sit half-announced. Docent Steak & Lounge first surfaced in Dallas back in the spring of 2024, promising samurai armor, a Kobe beef program, and a “museum-like” dinner unlike anything else in the Harwood District. Then it went quiet. The website stalled on a summer 2024 opening date that never happened, the socials went dark, and for a while it looked like the whole thing had quietly stalled out. It hadn’t. Docent is finally opening this fall, and Harwood Hospitality Group held onto every bit of ambition from that original announcement.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
