Tag Archives: Texas

AM/FM Is the Best Thing to Happen to the Design District in Years

Ferris Wheeler’s ran for eight years on Market Center Boulevard before it closed last fall — a big backyard, a stage, cold beer, and barbecue. It was a good run. What replaced it is something harder to describe in a single sentence, which is usually a good sign.

AM/FM at 1950 Market Center Boulevard is an all-day diner, a lounge, and a backyard concert venue, and it operates as all three at the same time depending on the hour. It comes from Matthew Harber and Annette Marin, who own Spune Productions — a Dallas music and concert promotion company that books Club Dada, the Granada, Three Links, Sons of Herman Hall, and other venues around town. They had been involved with the Ferris Wheeler’s space since 2023 helping build out the live music side, and when the BBQ operation closed they took the whole thing over. The Ferris wheel is still there, by the way. It’s not rideable, but it lights up, and it is visible from the backyard stage on a Friday night in the way that only a non-functioning amusement ride in the middle of Dallas could be.

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Pangea Has a New Address and Downtown Dallas Is Better For It

Kevin Ashade was born in Dallas, grew up in the U.K. and Nigeria, came back to Texas, went to the Culinary Institute of America, and spent years inside some of the most serious hotel dining rooms in the city — Nana at the Hilton Anatole, Craft at the W Hotel, The Oceanaire Seafood Room. He built a catering company called GourmEats. In 2016, he went on Beat Bobby Flay and beat Bobby Flay, with his coq au vin.

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Austin’s Best Oyster Bar Is Finally Coming to Dallas: Here’s What to Expect

Dallas has been waiting for Clark’s Oyster Bar longer than it should have had to. The Austin institution opened in 2012, became one of the most copied seafood concepts in Texas, expanded to Aspen, Houston, and Montecito — and somehow Dallas kept getting skipped. That changes this fall.

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Mother’s Day at The French Room Is One of Dallas’s Great Annual Traditions

The French Room inside The Adolphus has been one of the great rooms in Dallas since the hotel opened in 1912. Adolphus Busch built it on the beer fortune he made in St. Louis, and the design — vaulted ceilings, Corinthian columns, twin Murano glass chandeliers from Italy, marble floors, Louis XVI chairs — has aged exactly the way serious things age: without apology and without effort. Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip stayed at The Adolphus during their 1991 state visit. It has held the AAA Five Diamond Award without interruption since 1989. There is not another room quite like it in Texas, and maybe not in the South.

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Denton’s Osteria Il Muro Is a James Beard Finalist. It Seats 22 People

There is a restaurant in Denton called Osteria Il Muro with 22 seats, a backyard garden, and a menu that changes every single day. It is one of the hardest reservations in North Texas. People set calendar alarms for the last Monday of each month — the one morning the next month’s tables are released — and still don’t always get in.

The chef who runs it is a James Beard finalist for Best Chef: Texas. His name is Scott Girling. Most of Dallas has never heard of him.

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Ospi Opens in the Design District and the Pasta Alone Is Worth the Drive

Jackson Kalb was 13 years old the first time he walked into a real kitchen. Not his family’s kitchen — his parents, by his own admission, were not good home cooks. The kitchen he walked into was Mélisse in Santa Monica, a two-Michelin-star French restaurant, and he was there because a guest at one of his backyard catering gigs happened to know the chef. That chef was Josiah Citrin. He let the kid in.

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The Most Interesting Restaurant in North Texas Is in a Plano Shopping Center

Most people don’t think about Plano when they’re planning a serious dinner. That’s their mistake, and Jashan is the reason to correct it.

The restaurant opened quietly at 7401 Lone Star Drive in Legacy North a few months back, and what’s happening inside is unlike anything else in North Texas. The man behind it, Prasanna Singaraju, spent years in tech before he walked away from all of it to do this. He’d been standing in a parking garage near the Dallas North Tollway, staring at an empty retail space, imagining what it could become. That’s not a metaphor. He actually stood there and pictured the restaurant. Now it exists.

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The Best Tortilla in Dallas Is About to Have Its Own Restaurant

The tortilla is the first thing you need to understand about Molino Olōyō. Not the filling, not the protein, not the salsa. The tortilla. That’s where this whole operation begins, and once you taste one, you’ll understand why chef Olivia López has spent the last five years obsessing over it.

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