Tag Archives: What to do in Dallas

Duck Is Taking Over Dallas Menus, Here is Where to Enjoy

Duck is having a moment. Walk through any half-dozen new Dallas menus in 2026 and you will find duck showing up where it was not showing up five years ago — in confit on brunch plates, in kebab form next to flatbread, sliced over grilled endive, glazed and hung in the window of a dumpling shop, served whole on a sharing plate at the most-talked-about new restaurant in town. Chicken is still king. Beef is still beef. But duck has quietly moved up the menu in a way that says something about where Dallas dining is going.

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Skip the Pancakes, Brunch at Beverley’s

You know a brunch spot is working when the valet is full, the front patio is full, and nobody at any of the tables seems in a hurry to leave. That is Beverley’s Bistro & Bar on a Saturday around noon. The food is the reason, but the mood is why people stay. A couple at the bar splitting a plate of caviar latkes and not saying much because they do not need to. A family of six crammed into a corner booth with three kinds of eggs between them. Somebody at the next table ordering a second glass of prosecco before their plates have been cleared. You walk in and you feel like you just showed up at a party that was already going.

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Uptown Dumpling with Amazing Soup Dumplings and Peking Duck



A new Chinese restaurant opened on Preston Road in March and it’s already one of the more interesting things to happen to North Dallas dining in a while. It’s called Uptown Dumpling, and the chef running the kitchen — Hao Wenjie — has cooked at a level most people in this city have never encountered.

Chef Hao is a UNESCO Ambassador of Intangible Culinary Heritage. He personally led three China Day banquets at UN Headquarters in New York, events the Los Angeles Times once called an edible cultural white paper. He was part of the founding team behind the Michelin Guide’s launch in Beijing and holds accreditation as a judge with the World Association of Chefs Societies. He ended up at 18101 Preston Rd., Suite 204c, in a strip mall space that used to be Tian Tian. Dallas does things like that.

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Korea House Is Where Dallas Koreatown Started

If you asked me where Dallas Koreatown actually begins, I would point to a corner. Royal Lane and Harry Hines, southwest side. Korea House has been on that corner since 1987, and the restaurant itself goes back even further than that. Sung Kim opened the first one in Richardson in 1979. Most of her ingredients had to come in from New York back then. Korean food in Dallas was barely a thing. A handful of Korean wholesalers and small banks started moving into the cheap strip centers around Royal and Harry Hines a few years later, and Kim moved her restaurant right into the middle of them. Everything else you see out there now, all the grocers and markets and newer restaurants, grew up around her.

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The French Room Bar Throws Off Vibes from Another Era

A note before we go further. The French Room itself — the grand gilded dining room that earned its reputation over generations — remains closed for dinner. It still hosts afternoon tea and the occasional holiday service, but if you are picturing a full evening inside that baroque space, set the expectation aside for now.

What is open, and what Dallas should be paying attention to, is the French Room Bar next door. This is a separate, smaller room inside The Adolphus, and it is where the serious eating and drinking is happening right now.

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A Burger That Hides in Plain Sight: The Cottage

The Cottage sits on Northwest Highway in that stretch near Bachman Lake where the signs have been peeling for decades and nobody minds. It is a dive bar in the real sense of the word. Pool table, live blues a few nights a week, bikes lined up out front, a patio where people actually talk to each other. You do not go for atmosphere curated by a consultant. You go because it is what it is.

What surprises people is the burger.

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Richardson Has a Pizza Secret and It’s Time to Tell It

There is a pizzeria in Richardson that most people drive right past. No sign on the building, no marquee, no indication from the street that anything remarkable is happening inside. Just a small space at 514 Lockwood Drive, next door to Lockwood Distilling, where Maen Azzam and Sonia Khan are making some of the most serious Neapolitan pizza in North Texas.

The place is called Farina in Grani. It opened in November 2024 and came out of the pandemic the way a lot of the best food businesses do — from boredom and obsession. Khan started baking during lockdown, moved on to pizza, made it for family and friends, then catered events with a portable oven, then decided to do it for real. The name means “flour in grains” and refers to the whole-grain wheat flour they use in the dough — germ, bran, and endosperm together — which gives the crust its signature golden color and a depth of flavor you don’t get from refined flour.

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How to Spend Cinco de Mayo in Dallas — With and Without the Tequila

A quick note before we get into it: Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day. That’s September 16. May 5 commemorates the Mexican army’s unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla in 1862 — one battle in a longer war, but one that became a lasting symbol of resistance and resilience. Dallas celebrates it with genuine enthusiasm, a serious margarita culture, and enough options to fill an entire week. Here’s how to make sense of it all.

May 5 falls on a Tuesday this year, which means the celebrating starts the weekend before and builds from there. Plan accordingly.

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