Dallas, TX

For Diners With Deep Pockets, Dallas Is the New Dubai

Published

2 years ago

May 22, 2023

For Diners With Deep Pockets, Dallas Is the New Dubai

The crowds streaming into Highland Park Village are hungry for luxury. At this open-air shopping center in suburban Dallas, they valet-park their Porsches, sport Yves Saint Laurent handbags, flit in and out of Audemars Piguet and pause for brunch at Sadelle’s, the fancy new deli from Major Food Group in New York.

Sadelle’s has been open for just over a year, and it’s not unusual to find the place packed on a Tuesday afternoon, as well-dressed guests sip mimosas and snack on $18 pigs in a blanket and $85 latkes topped with salmon and Osetra caviar. Even the sugar for coffee comes to the table in tiny Le Creuset Dutch ovens.

Dallas has long had a reputation for living large, an image built on oil money and the wide swaths of ranch land displayed on its namesake TV series. But today, the city is enjoying a surge of new development, new residents, new wealth — and a dining scene pumped up by the arrival of several high-end national restaurant groups, all looking to cater the party.

These companies are giving Dallas the kind of attention they’ve previously lavished on tourist playgrounds like Las Vegas and Miami. In the last two years or so, local outposts have been established bySTK, RH, Komodo, La Neta Cocina y Lounge and even Nusr-Et, the Salt Bae steakhouse. Major Food Group opened a Dallas branch of its maximalist-Italian restaurant Carbone last year, and says it has even larger ambitions in the city.

The local rumor mill is humming with speculation about the next potential imports — names like Joe’s Stone Crab from Miami (which said it had no such plan), or Ralph Lauren’s Polo Bar (which didn’t respond to requests for comment) and Pastis (which said it was in “preliminary talks” about a space) from New York City.

“I have gotten calls from every single restaurant group in the country,” said Stephen Summers, whose family owns Highland Park Village. He added: “Every group you can think of, from Los Angeles to New York City to international groups, seems to want to be in Dallas.”

The pandemic spurred many Americans to move to places like Miami and San Antonio, where the weather was warmer and Covid restrictions were looser.

No city has benefited from this shift quite like Dallas. From April 2020 to July 2021, the Dallas-Fort Worth area gained about 122,000 new residents, more than any other metro area in the nation, according to Census data. Some demographers predict that by the 2030s, Dallas — now the largest metropolis in Texas — could replace Chicago as the third-largest metro area in the nation.

Where will those people go for fun? The Dallas-Fort Worth area has no beaches, mountains or world wonders, but it has about 15,000 places to eat. In 2022, the average Dallas household spent a larger share of its income on dining out than those in New York, Miami or San Francisco, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Like any major city, Dallas has its share of want — 17.7 percent of its population lives in poverty — and economic inequality. The area is home to 92,300 millionaires and 18 billionaires, according to a 2022 report from Henley & Partners, a London investment firm, that ranked Dallas the 18th wealthiest city in the world. Several Fortune 500 companies, including AT&T and American Airlines, are headquartered in the area.

“You have no idea the velocity of spending that happens in that market,” said Julie Macklowe, the founder of the Macklowe American Single Malt Whiskey, which sells for $350 to $400 a shot in numerous Dallas restaurants. “It is like the U.S.’s version of Dubai.”

These upscale chains cater to the city’s ultrawealthy — and those who want to live like them for an evening. The Las Vegas-based restaurant group Blau + Associates recently opened Crown Block in Dallas’s soaring Reunion Tower, where the seafood tower costs $230. The place had about 10,000 reservations before it even released a menu.

The three-month-old Dallas branch of La Neta Cocina y Lounge, originally from Las Vegas, offers a $95 lobster taco served in a cheese-stuffed tortilla.

Ryan Labbe, who owns the restaurants, has high hopes for Dallas, where — unlike in Las Vegas — a meal isn’t just a pit stop on the way to a show or a club.

“Dinner in Dallas is your night,” he said.

In Dallas, these companies have also found manageable operating costs. There’s no state or local income tax. Rents are cheaper and ingredients cost less than in many other major cities, said Matt Winn, a partner in and the chief development officer of the Chicago-based Maple Hospitality Group, which has two Dallas restaurants — Monarch and Kessaku — and has plans to open a third, Maple & Ash. It’s been easier to hire workers, he said, and to sell extravagant dishes.

At Monarch, “we have a whole king crab that serves eight people and it is $1,000,” Mr. Winn said. Dallas diners “will show up and spend that.”

In a city whose dining scene has often dwelled in the shadow of Houston’s diverse cuisines and Austin’s array of distinctive independent restaurants, many locals are loving the attention.

“You have two Ritz-Carltons being built here,” said George White, a retired I.T. salesman who eats out often. “Things are happening.”

But a splashy dining scene isn’t necessarily an interesting one, said Brian Reinhart, the restaurant critic at D Magazine, who recently published a list of the city’s 50 best restaurants — and deliberately left the out-of-town chain restaurants off it.

“If we are headed toward a world where the highest-end dining is just as chain-ified as the most basic fast food,” he said, “it’s going to be harder for Dallas to maintain any sort of distinction or culinary character.”

Chain restaurants have historically been part of the city’s identity, albeit less expensive ones: Chili’s, On the Border Mexican Grill & Cantina and 7-Eleven all got their start here. The proliferation of these businesses hurt the image of the local dining scene, said Mark Masinter, the founder of Open Realty Advisors, which leases real estate to Dallas restaurants.

But in recent years, many of the city’s independent restaurants have thrived and drawn national praise. Bon Appétit chose Dallas as its restaurant city of the year in 2019. Other publications have named Petra and the Beast and Roots Southern Table among the country’s best. (The Times included Roots in its 2021 list of favorite American restaurants.)

Sam Romano, who runs the local steakhouse Nick & Sam’s, said the influx of out-of-town restaurant groups will further raise Dallas’s profile. “With restaurants come prestige,” he said, citing Major Food Group’s decision to open a satellite of Carbone, one of only four in the United States. “That says something about Dallas.”

A few years ago, Dallas wasn’t even on the radar of the New York restaurateur Eugene Remm. At the encouragement of a colleague, he visited in 2021 and was surprised to find dining rooms that were packed every night of the week.

“If you can find restaurants busy on Mondays and Tuesdays and restaurants in a dense, two-mile radius that can do $17 million, $22 million, there are no more than 10 markets that can justify that kind of spend on a regular basis,” he said. “That makes it special.”

Next year, he plans to open a location of Catch, an upscale seafood and steak restaurant, in the city’s fast-growing Uptown neighborhood.

He once associated Dallas with “George Bush and cowboy hats,” he said, but discovered that it’s more like New York. “People are going to members’ clubs and have the same Dior store and the same Gucci store and the same everything.”

Not every national restaurant group succeeds here. The chef Tom Colicchio closed his Dallas location of Craft in 2012. Il Mulino, an Italian import from New York City, shuttered in 2006 after just two years in business.

Today, Dallas diners are more cosmopolitan, said Candace Nelson, who opened a location of the Sprinkles cupcake shop in 2007, followed by a branch of the Los Angeles restaurant Pizzana in 2022. “They are excited when a concept from their many travels chooses their city to come to.”

On a recent Friday night at Carbone, that excitement among guests was palpable. Throughout the evening, customers in stilettos and suits poured out of Cadillac Escalades. Servers in crimson uniforms whizzed around the restaurant with $600 bottles of Burgundy and slabs of chocolate cake topped with edible gold.

“The people working here, they call them captains, and they have the outfits,” said Nav Singh, who works in real estate and was splurging on a celebration of his birthday at Carbone. “They are putting effort into it. At a mom-and-pop shop, it is maybe white shirt, black pants.” Compared with the average Dallas restaurant, he said, “this is more elevated.”

But the boom in out-of-town restaurants hasn’t come without casualties to the home team.

In 2021, Julian Barsotti, who owned a longtime Dallas restaurant called Carbone’s, sued Carbone, claiming copyright infringement. But it was Mr. Barsotti who ended up changing the name of his restaurant, after making a deal with Major Food Group.

“If the name meant that much to them, at the end of the day I was happy to compromise,” said Mr. Barsotti, who said he could not disclose the terms of the deal.

Erin Willis, who recently closed her French restaurant, RM 12:20 Bistro, in East Dallas, said the large restaurant groups were partly to blame.

“These big corporate entities that now own all the restaurants, they can pay for more advertising, they have deeper pockets, they are more glitzy,” she said. “It puts the small places like myself into the background, and we can’t survive.”

The outside groups also dilute the city’s culinary diversity, she said.

“Dallas has so many ethnic foods to offer, but what the corporate side is doing is bringing so much of the same thing into the metroplex,” she said. “There is no variety. It edges out the people who are trying to stay true to their culture.”

Teiichi Sakurai runs the downtown Japanese restaurant Tei-An, a short drive from two nationally known sushi places, Nobu and Uchi, that came from other cities. But Mr. Sakurai said his business hasn’t been affected by the competition.

“Nobu, they have much more European dishes, using Japanese fish done carpaccio style,” he said. “We do handmade soba.”

And Dallas diners are loyal, he said. “We have 25 years of regulars.” National groups come and go, he said. “They don’t remember names.”

Regino Rojas, who serves dishes from his native Michoacán, Mexico, at his restaurants, Revolver Taco Lounge and Revolver Gastro Cantina, said upscale chains focus more on curating an atmosphere than on serving unique food. His clientele, he said, is different.

Besides, said Mr. Romano of Nick & Sam’s, Dallas is only getting denser and larger, as new developments expand the metro area’s footprint. If restaurant groups want to set up shop here, “we have the space and people for them.”

Is there such a thing as too many places to eat?

“I don’t think there are enough yet,” he said.

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Dallas, TX

Cowboys built largest home lead of season, held on for first AT&T Stadium win vs. Giants

Published

7 hours ago

November 29, 2024

Press Room

Cowboys built largest home lead of season, held on for first AT&T Stadium win vs. Giants

Thanksgiving traditions can come from anywhere. They can start at any time and feel as important the very first time as they do years later. For the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving, they sparked their second winning streak of the 2024 season by beating the New York Giants 27-20. In the spirit of the holiday season, the headline here doesn’t need to be that the Cowboys won both games against the Giants this year, now the clear worst team in the NFC East, by a combined 12 points. They are playing mostly watchable football for the first time in a long time, having some fun while doing so, and getting players back healthy to make a difference.

They finally have a home win to improve their AT&T Stadium record to 1-5 this season, with home games remaining against the Bengals, Buccaneers, and Commanders. It wouldn’t be a 2024 Cowboys home game without trailing early at some point, but unlike in so many other games this season the Cowboys were able to respond, get back to playing complementary football, and win the turnover battle and the game.

The Cowboys have now won two straight to snap a previous five-game losing streak and improved their record to 5-7. It is amazing how simply winning games in this league can turn narratives on their head, even when the wins and losses are determined by mere inches. Dallas has gone from a team destined to have one of the most pitiful lost seasons of all time to one tied in the win column with Indianapolis, San Francisco, Tampa Bay, and the L.A. Rams. The outlooks for all of these teams are much better than where the Cowboys appeared to be heading before finding their footing and winning two games in four days. This is a team that hasn’t showed signs of quitting despite staring many reasons for doing so in the face.

While these wins have dropped their draft position outside of the top ten, the Giants seventh straight loss keeps them in position for the number one overall pick. Certainly this adds the context to not get carried away with too much talk of the Cowboys making a miraculous run to the playoffs, but winning in the Thanksgiving throwback uniforms is always a welcome sight. This was the fourth time the Cowboys and Giants have met on Turkey Day, with the Cowboys now 4-0 and securing a sweep of their rivals from New Jersey for the fourth straight season and seventh in the last eight.

Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images

With a longer break now before the Cowboys look to add to their two-game win streak and start a home one against the Bengals, here is how the team served up dessert to go with every fan’s Thanksgiving feast on Thursday afternoon.

It was once again a makeshift offensive line for the Cowboys as Zack Martin missed his second straight game. In what should have been a good evaluation game for Tyler Guyton, it was mostly Chuma Edoga at left tackle after Guyton got hurt, alongside Tyler Smith who did return after missing the Commanders game.

The Cowboys were able to mitigate this again by getting the ball out of Cooper Rush’s hands, as well as relying on Rico Dowdle to serve as his own blocker when needed and run through defenders for positive yards. Of Rush’s 21 completions, only two were completed longer than ten yards. The Cowboys were just 3-12 on third downs, with two of these conversions coming on the game’s opening drive. Jumping out to a touchdown lead against a Giants team starting journeyman Drew Lock at QB would have been ideal, but another red zone third-down attempt didn’t give the Cowboys much of a chance at finding paydirt.

With Brandin Cooks playing in his first game since the week four win at the Giants, also played on a Thursday night, the Cowboys looked to get him involved early out wide. This allowed CeeDee Lamb to get more opportunities out of the slot which is where Mike McCarthy can scheme the run-after-the-catch plays needed for this Cowboys offense to find any explosiveness. With Cooks on the outside and Lamb inside on a third and five, Cooks could not win at the catch point on a drive route and brought up a fourth down that led to Brandon Aubrey’s first of two field goals.

Cooks and Lamb playing on the same side of the formation was a heavy focus for the Cowboys in this game, looking to find any way to get their receivers more free releases and create easy throws underneath for Rush. This entire concept is still a work in progress for this offense though. The second-down play before the incompletion in the red zone was a slot fade to Kavontae Turpin. We mentioned last week how Turpin should have a real chance to get more involved with the offense for the rest of this season, but a low percentage throw like this one is not a good way to do so.

In his first game back from injury, Cooks continued to have some of the same struggles from earlier in the year when it came to keeping defenders away from the catch point and separating vertically on routes. Returning for just his third home game of the season after only playing in early season runaway games against the Saints and Ravens, it was a great sight for tired turkey-feasting eyes to see Cooks score on a crossing route in the third quarter to extend the Dallas lead to ten. This pushed the lead to double-digits which went a long way with Lock and the Giants offense struggling to sustain drives and handle a Cowboys pass rush that again had their way whenever given the chance to play from ahead.

If the playoffs are still going to be a distant objective for this Cowboys team, and evaluating the existing talent on the roster is still the primary objective over these next five weeks, it is important not to lose sight of players with high draft pedigree or “blue chip” prospects in this evaluation. In this case, it was again defensive tackle Mazi Smith having a strong game on the defensive interior.

Mike Zimmer’s defense has looked like the most consistently prepared unit on this entire football team for weeks now. Led by a pass rush that’s been lifted by Micah Parsons, and expects DeMarcus Lawrence back as early as next Monday night versus the Bengals, the Cowboys never let Lock get comfortable in the pocket in this game. He had some scramble plays that extended drives, but Lock was mostly contained where the Cowboys got to him for six sacks. Lock’s 28 yard rush in the first quarter was the Giants’ longest offensive play of the game.

The Giants’ first possession going for a touchdown was their only TD drive until late in the fourth quarter, and they got there by converting both a fourth-and-short and third-and-short. The Cowboys did a great job making later third-down attempts for the Giants more obvious passing situations where they could bring pressure and force the ball short of the sticks, while committing coverage to star rookie receiver Malik Nabers and force other targets to beat them. Jourdan Lewis and others did a good job disrupting Nabers and not allowing him to run free downfield. Lewis’ consistently strong play this season, particularly in recent weeks, has helped safety Donovan Wilson look better in coverage by having more time to get to his spots in coverage and not have to carry receivers at their stem in man.

Both starting cornerbacks Bland and Butler were up to the challenge, while DeMarvion Overshown also got in on the action in coverage with one of the defensive plays of the season for Dallas. Overshown has been a blur all season making plays all over the field, especially in his first Thanksgiving action against the Giants. He is one of the team’s best young rising players to build around at linebacker, and plays like his tipped screen pass for a pick six to give the Cowboys their first lead show why.

When Overshown crossed the goal line to put the Cowboys ahead 13-7, the narrow six-point lead was actually the team’s largest of the season at home. Even playing with a marginal lead is all the Cowboys needed to settle into this game and play to their strengths. The Cowboys offense left a lot to be desired in their efforts to separate on the scoreboard and make it a true Thanksgiving feast, having a CeeDee Lamb third-down drop that led to Hunter Luepke being stopped short on fourth down in the second quarter. The defense more than picked up the slack, forcing back-to-back punts after Overshown’s pick-six with a Donovan Wilson third-down sack and three-and-out around their own turnover on downs.

On the Wilson sack, Parsons also had pressure twisting from the defensive end spot to rush against the Giants interior offensive line. Increasing these chances for Parsons to rush against guards is something Zimmer should be able to do more of when Lawrence returns to play at left defensive end if the play of the defensive tackle group remains strong led by Smith, Linval Joseph, and Osa Odighizuwa, who added a sack as well.

The Giants’ first drive lasting 13 plays for a touchdown was longer than their next four drives combined, ending in an interception, two punts, and a field goal. This is simply not a Zimmer and Al Harris led defense that is going to let opposing offenses get comfortable and control the game while putting up points that increase the pressure on Rush to get in shootouts. The Cowboys were able to get Rico Dowdle over 20 touches for the second week in a row, and the results showed up in the most important place – the win column.

Just how far the Cowboys can take this style of play the rest of the season remains to be seen, but being good enough over their last two games to reach 3-1 in division play is something every Dallas fan can smile about.

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Dallas, TX

Game Day Guide: Stars vs Avalanche | Dallas Stars

Published

15 hours ago

November 29, 2024

Press Room

Game Day Guide: Stars vs Avalanche | Dallas Stars

First Shift 🏒

As the Stars pass the quarter point in the 2024-25 season, they definitely have some challenges.

After posting back-to-back trips to the Western Conference Final under coach Pete DeBoer and his staff, the start of this year has been uneven. Dallas last season had the best road record in the NHL and the best in franchise history at 26-10-5. This year, Dallas is 5-6-0 away from home and also has an additional “home” loss in Finland. That’s something that has to be addressed.

But, conversely, they are much better at home, going 8-1-0 at American Airlines Center, adding to the realization that this is a completely different season.

So when you compare the two performances, there is a lot to be addressed. Dallas was second best in points percentage last season at .689 and is eighth best this year at .619. The Stars last season were third in scoring at 3.59 goals per game and are eighth this year at 3.38 goals per game. That said, they are still eighth in both categories.

But it doesn’t feel that way.

“This team I don’t think has had a ton of adversity these last two years, and there’s a little bit coming at us right now,” said Duchene after a 6-2 loss in Chicago on Wednesday. “We’ve just got to figure things out and keep working and pushing.”

The Stars’ biggest issue so far has been a lack of power play success. Dallas is 25^th in success rate on the man advantage at 16.7 percent after ranking sixth last year at 24.2 percent. They also have surrendered three shorthanded goals after allowing only four all of last season.

“We have to find the balance,” said Johnston. “You can’t panic, you have to stay focused. You just have to outwork the penalty killers. You have five guys, but you still have to work harder than their four.”

The Stars will get the chance to do that with some great tests coming up. Dallas plays host to Colorado on Friday and Winnipeg on Sunday. The Avalanche are starting to get healthy and are 7-2-0 in their past nine games. Winnipeg is leading the NHL at 18-5-0. After winning the Central Division last season, Dallas currently ranks third.

That said, this is a strange season. Because the league will shut down for the Four Nations Faceoff in February, and because the Stars took a week to go to Finland, the schedule is condensed. As a result, the players and coaches have to adjust. Even so, many good teams have had challenges this year too, and that’s part of the game.

“You look around the league and we’re not the only team going through something like this,” DeBoer said. “You have to dig in and stick together and get your foundation back and play better hockey.”

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Dallas, TX

New York Giants Fall to Dallas Cowboys, 27-20 on Thanksgiving

Published

23 hours ago

November 28, 2024

Press Room

New York Giants Fall to Dallas Cowboys, 27-20 on Thanksgiving

The New York Giants’ dreadful 2024 season continued with a 27-20 to the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving. It was the Giants’ seventh-straight loss this season and their eighth-consecutive defeat at the hands of the Cowboys, dating back to the 2020 season.

The Cowboys benefitted from two Giants turnovers, including a pick-6 by DeMarvion Overshown in the second quarter he returned 23 yards to give the Cowboys a 13-7 lead, the Cowboys at that point never relinquishing the lead.

The other came following a Giants fumble in the second half, which the Cowboys converted into another touchdown to cap a six-play scoring drive.

The game started well, as the Giants held the Cowboys to just a field goal after their first possession. The Giants offense took the field with Drew Lock under center for the injured Tommy DeVito.

Lock was under pressure practically half the game, the Cowboys hitting him 14 times and sacking him six. The Giants also had just as many penalties in this game (13) as they did first downs (17), and their defense once again couldn’t stop the run if they tried, with missed tackles–at least 10 of them in the first half alone–an ongoing problem.

Cowboys running back Rico Dowdle captured his first career 100+ yard rushing game, going for 112 yards and one touchdown against the Giants, who saw three defensive linemen–D.J. Davidson (shoulder), Rakeem Nunez-Roches (stinger) and Dexter Lawrence II (elbow)–leave the game with injuries.

Cowboys quarterback Cooper Rush finished 21 of 36 for 195 yards and one touchdown, his leading receiver being tight end Luke Schoonmaker (five catches on six pass targets).

Lock and running back Tyrone Tracy, Jr. scored the Giants’ two touchdowns, TRacy’s coming on a 1-yard run on the Giants’ opening drive to give them their first lead in a game since Week 6, and then Lock scoring a fourth-quarter garbage time touchdown on an 8-yard rush to make it 27-20 with 2:18 left.

The Giants got the rest of their scoring from kicker Graham Gano, who hit field goals of 46 and 47 yards.

Giants receiver Malik Nabers caught 13 pass targets for 69 yards, but he also dropped two balls. Rookie tight end Theo Johnson displayed toughness on a few of his receptions, hauling in five catches for 54 yards.

This is the Giants’ ninth time in the last 11 seasons that they’ve lost at least ten games. This loss eliminated them from playoff contention and currently slots them into the No.1 pick in April’s draft.

The Giants will have 10 days to prepare for their next matchup, a home meeting with the New Orleans Saints. They’re now the only team in the NFL to win a game at home still not this season, and they currently have the league’s longest losing streak.