Wondering what Dopers On The Ground think about this article stating all the fine restaurants want to decamp to Dallas? Puff piece? Pure pork? Positively Passionate?
Here’s a non paywalled link:
For Diners With Deep Pockets, Dallas Is the New Dubai – DNyuz
It doesn’t surprise me. The city, for good or ill, seems to have always been very… aspirational(?), in that even though there’s a lot of money here, there’s always this sort of inadequacy in the city’s character that tries to compare itself to NYC, LA, London, etc… in terms of ritziness and whatever, and seems to always find itself lacking.
So for fancy restaurants from elsewhere to come here and cater to the rich yet insecure crowd is right on brand for the city’s wealthy people. They’re going to go to some absurdly expensive place in Highland Park Village because it’s absurdly expensive and from NYC, not because it’s necessarily the best place in town for whatever cuisine.
The unfortunate thing is that the city’s long had a VERY vibrant local fine dining scene, and a very competitive restaurant scene in general, and this influx of foreign restaurants trying to prey on that inadequacy I spoke of earlier isn’t going to do that scene any favors, I fear. Too many people around here are just eating at places because they’re “cool”, not because they’re serious foodies or gourmands, and going to some place like Nusr-Et is (Lord knows why) cool, while Nick & Sam’s is viewed as old, stodgy, and local, even if I seriously doubt that Nusr-Et actually can put out a better steak.
If I could thumbs up a post, I would for this one.
I also want to point out clearly that the foodie crowd in Dallas is NOT necessarily the fine dining/expensive restaurant crowd.
For example, the article calls out Roots Southern Table and mentions that it’s been named one of the country’s best new restaurants by Esquire magazine. I’ll be willing to bet that very few of the hoity-toity rich crowd have actually gone there. Why? Because Roots is in a sort of mixed-use developmetn in Farmer’s Branch, a suburb of Dallas not known for wealth, luxury, or anything else really. That crowd would have to park their own car, which probably isn’t fancy enough for them.
Meanwhile, Cafe Pacific chugs right along in Highland Park Village. There’s nothing wrong with Cafe Pacific, but I suspect it wouldn’t survive long if it was forced to move out of what’s probably the swankiest shopping mall in the area. It’s good, but not that good, if you know what I mean.
We visited the Dallas/Fort Worth area a couple of years ago.
We had a reasonably good meal at an Italian place in a fancy area of North-Eastern (?) Dallas and found a decent Middle Eastern place - where we had a lunch - in Fort Worth. Our best meal in the area was at Reata, in Fort Worth. We certainly felt like we had options and things to try.
But, with two large cities, and only a few days, it would be hard to put much of a dent into almost any place to try and get a sense of how it compares to other cities. The only exception might be if you compare to someplace like Manhattan. In Manhattan, going from one place to another that looks worth trying is just a matter of walking a few blocks. D/FW ain’t New York.
In Dallas, I think I remember a small downtown section that seemed like it had a few cute restaurants and cafes but, in general, it seemed like you would need to visit a few neighborhoods if you wanted to try everything - and that would be a hell of a drive. Fort Worth seemed a bit more compact, with everything worth trying solely located in that one area of town, but the food all felt a bit more authentic. Possibly, just the luck of the draw.