DALLAS | TEXAS
The Best Dallas Restaurants, According to Someone Who Eats Here for a Living
By Rebecca Thompson | Nov. 13, 2025
Gemma
AUTHOR BIO: A former math teacher and restaurant critic, Rebecca Thompson has combed her home state of Texas for the best brisket and finest tacos and will gladly debate the merits of combining the two.
When I land in a new city, I am the person who immediately types “restaurants near me” into my phone and then regrets it. In Dallas, the algorithms send you to the same steakhouse chains, the same Instagram-famous brunch spots, the same “best Dallas restaurants” lists that have not been updated since the Bush administration. Meanwhile, the real energy in the Dallas dining scene is happening a few blocks away, in rooms that never asked for a ring light.
So as a longtime Dallasite, this is my answer when somebody asks me what’s the best restaurant in Dallas right now. These are the Dallas restaurants where chefs are chasing Michelin inspectors, James Beard voters, and, more importantly, the regulars who show up on a random Tuesday.
If you are searching for “restaurants near me in Dallas” from a hotel room downtown, this list will not send you to the closest option. It will send you to the right one.
Apothecary
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There’s something slightly sinister about this place. The cocktails arrive smoking or bubbling or served in tiny glass cauldrons. And the small plates are actually terrific—clever versions of tapas and bar snacks that are worth the visit on their own. It’s the only bar in Dallas where I’ve been handed a tiny course of crab with my drink, an experience I’d gladly repeat.
Best for: Those who want their drinks with a side of mad-scientist theater
Bar Colette
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In December 2024, Bar Colette’s menu went through a remake thanks to Kazuhito “Kaz” Mabuchi, the executive chef and partner of Namo, Bar Colette’s sister restaurant next door. The menu is now Mabuchi’s creative takes on modern Japanese dishes and sushi. And while drinks alone make it worth a visit, Mabuchi is now just as much the draw. There’s also the vibe, the kind of slick space you’d expect in Midtown Manhattan, not Uptown Dallas. For dessert: Basque cheesecake, which might seem out of place until you learn, as I did, that it’s trending big-time in Tokyo these days—and who isn’t a sucker for a place where you can learn something new about food?
Best for: A sleek pre- or post-dinner date where the sushi is as serious as the martinis
Claremont
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In December 2024, brothers Greg and Nicholas Katz transformed the former Suze space into Claremont, a neighborhood grill designed to be a local gathering spot. The menu features comforting classics like pimento cheese, chicken wings, and a standout double-cut Duroc pork chop. Notably, the smoked brisket sliders are crafted using beef from Zavala’s Barbecue in Grand Prairie. The Katz brothers, originally from South Africa, infuse familial touches into Claremont, naming it after the Cape Town suburb where their grandparents reside. With its warm ambiance and thoughtfully curated menu, Claremont blends tradition with a fresh perspective.
Best for: Weeknight dinners when you want a neighborhood hang with a proper pork chop
Gemma
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There are restaurants where you come for the scene, and then there’s Gemma, where you come because the kitchen never misses. Chef Stephen Rogers and Allison Yoder opened this place over a decade ago, and somehow it’s only gotten better—so much so that Gemma earned a James Beard nomination for Outstanding Hospitality in 2024, which Dallas took as a personal victory. The shrimp ceviche lands bright and citrusy without drowning in acid, and the heirloom carrots over masa polenta feel like the dish that would win this year’s Thanksgiving. If you’re the type who judges a restaurant by its steak, the Akaushi ribeye for two, served with nothing but a green salad, is a practice in restraint. It’s a bistro, sure—but one that just might be the best in the city.
Best for: Long, talky dinners where every course reminds you why you go out to eat
Georgie
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Georgie used to be the kind of steakhouse where you’d expect to overhear a tech guy explain crypto. Then chef Wes Whitsell took over recently and made it more interesting: hamachi croque madame, "Texas fungus" risotto, and a venison loin with pork jowl vinaigrette that I would genuinely fight somebody for.
Best for: Steakhouse nights for people who secretly care more about vegetables and sauces
Le PasSage
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Le PasSage in Downtown merges French and Vietnamese in a way that sounds like a stretch until you taste it. The Pekin duck, pictured above is crispy-skinned and served splayed out prettily, along with ingredients to make little mu shu tacos. It's elegant without being stuffy, and yes, the waitstaff will pronounce everything correctly so you don’t have to.
Best for: A dinner that feel a little like Paris and a little like Saigon
Little Blue Bistro
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Little Blue Bistro feels like stumbling into someone’s extremely tasteful living room, if that someone also happens to be a talented chef. Olivia Genthe, who also runs Fount Board & Table, works out of a kitchen that feels about the size of a postage stamp, turning out escargot in herb-spiked Burgundy butter with Oak Cliff Bread baguette, Foxley River oysters on ice, and a wagyu pot roast with pepperoncini and mashed potatoes that eats like the platonic ideal of Sunday dinner. The natural-wine list is the real rabbit hole, full of bottles built on glera, catarratto, grillo, valdiguie, and hondarrabi zuri, poured by a crew that treats it like play instead of homework. I like to linger over stracciatella drenched in olive oil or a cannoli on the back patio, realizing, usually too late, that this was never going to be a one-glass kind of night.
Best for: Bishop Arts evenings with natural wine, escargot, and nowhere else to be
Lucia
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You know how some restaurants feel like they’ve been there forever, even if you’ve only just discovered them? That’s Lucia. It’s a postage-stamp-sized spot tucked into Bishop Arts, where chef David Uygur makes pasta the way Italians do when they’re trying to show off for their grandmothers. The menu changes often, which feels like a flex—like, sure, they could give you a greatest hits album, but instead they’re going to play all B-sides and still blow your mind. I once had a rigatoni with beef shank ragu so rich it should have come with a nondisclosure agreement. Reservations aren’t easy, but that’s part of the charm. It’s not trying to win you over. It just does.
Best for: Special-occasion pasta pilgrimages planned weeks ahead
Mābo
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The room is quiet and dark, the kind of place where you whisper things like “a5 wagyu” and “aged soy.” Mābo is Dallas’s first proper omakase experience, with the chef handing over 20 or so bites that escalate from simple to borderline theatrical. It’s a meal where you lose track of time, and also the names of fish you thought you knew.
Best for: Omakase splurges where you surrender the night and let the chef drive
Mamani
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Mamani is the Dallas restaurant everyone was whispering about before it even opened, and then it went ahead and snagged a Michelin star less than two months in, just to end the debate. The room in the Quad development feels like a Riviera daydream: soft light, a little glam, an air-conditioned garden terrace. Chef Christophe De Lellis spent nearly a decade running Joël Robuchon’s kitchen in Las Vegas before opening Mamani, where he sends out food that matches the polish. The menu reads like French and Italian classics run through a less fussy filter: croquettes with Benton’s country ham and Manchego, vitello tonnato brightened with mustard seed and capers, jidori chicken with a three-day jus that tastes like it has seen things, agnolotti with chanterelles and corn essence, and Maine lobster in peppery sauce au poivre with pommes frites.
Best for: Big-night dinners when you want Michelin polish without the starchiness
Mirador
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On the top floor of a downtown department store, Mirador is the finest of Dallas’ fine-dining restaurants. The room is bright and lovely, the kind of place where people take long lunches and pretend they’re not checking their phones. The menu leans fancy without being fussy—think lobster rolls, bright salads, and a very cold martini.
Best for: Power lunches and celebrations that demand daylight, martinis, and city views
Namo
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Namo is where to go when you want to remember that sushi is supposed to feel a little dramatic. Slide onto a stool at the sushi bar, and chef-partner Kazuhito “Kaz” Mabuchi—who came here from Michelin-starred Sushi Ginza Onodera in Los Angeles—starts sending out bites calibrated down to the grain of rice. This is a place that flies in most of its fish and a lot of its pantry directly from Japan, then lets the kitchen decide if a cut wants to be aged, brushed with soy, or served nearly bare. You can commit to the full namokase or nigiri course, or graze through things like the 16 Piece + Sashimi set, Sake New Style, and an A5 wagyu tostada on a crisp gyoza chip that feels like a tiny, ridiculous luxury.
Best for: Letting the chef drive an overachieving hand-roll and nigiri omakase
Pillar
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The menu at Pillar in Bishop Arts looks like someone’s very well-traveled Pinterest board. You’ve got a little Japan, a little France, a little South Texas—somehow it works. Everything is plated just so, but none of it feels like it’s trying too hard. Bonus: you can get out of here for under $40 if you’re smart.
Best for: Sharing plates with friends who cannot agree on a single cuisine
Purépecha
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Attached to Revolver Taco Lounge, chef Regino Rojas offers tasting menus of four or seven courses showing off the dishes of his hometown of Michoacan, Mexico. The plates are fine-dining interpretations of centuries-old recipes, with the highlight, carnitas, cooked confit-style in pork fat. And his quesadilla stuffed with hen of the woods mushroom and menonita cheese arrives blanketed in a heart-stopping mole verde—just simply one of the best dishes in town.
Best for: Tasting-menu nights that double as a master class in Michoacán cooking
Ramble Room
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Ramble Room in Snider Plaza is a restaurant built for the Highland Park set, but you don’t need a trust fund to eat here. The burger is beefy and a little messy, and the deviled eggs are spiked with something mysterious and delicious. Come for brunch and stay long enough to wonder what it’s like to live in one of the mansions down the street.
Best for: Brunch and burgers when you feel underdressed for Highland Park and love it
Sachet
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I walked into Sachet expecting the polished vibe of a city spot, but what smacked me first was the menu. A dozen thoughtful dishes, every one of them sounding like something I wanted to order, largely uncomplicated and showing off what’s in season. The Asian pear salad—with roasted butternut squash and warm, spiced pepitas—is the kind of starter that stops you mid-chew and makes you want to order it every time you come back. And then there's the lamb shank brodetto, slow-braised with root vegetables, mushrooms, and finished in a pomegranate glaze—it’s rustic comfort elevated, the kind of dish that’ll make you toast to whoever’s cooking. Sachet is the spot that’s earned a Michelin nod and kept its cool since before Dallas got recognition from the French tire makers.
Best for: Mediterranean-leaning dinners with seasonal plates and a quietly serious wine list
Starship Bagel
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If you believe the New Yorkers, no bagels outside the five boroughs are supposed to be this good. And yet, owner Oren Salomon is producing a bagel right here in Dallas that’s a dense, chewy circle of dough, hand-rolled, boiled, and topped with crisp poppy seeds that end up on your shirt the rest of the day. If you grew up on bagels that came in sleeves from the supermarket freezer aisle, this spot in Lewisville is corrective therapy.
Best for: Mornings when only a perfect bagel sandwich will do
Smoke'N Ash BBQ
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Texas barbecue and Ethiopian spice don’t seem like natural partners until you try Smoke’N Ash in Arlington. Then you start wondering why nobody ever thought to wrap brisket in injera before. Fasicka and Patrick Hicks earned both a James Beard nomination and a spot in the Michelin Guide, recognition that they created something that somehow tastes both deeply traditional and completely new.
Tejas BBQ
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There’s no dining room, no bar stools, no table numbers—just a walk-up window and the smell of smoked meat drifting down Peak Street. Tejas BBQ and Tacos is the new venture from Antonio Guevara and Tifany Swulius, longtime fixtures of East Dallas service life who finally opened their own place after years of working in kitchens, bars, and a whole lot of late-night pop-ups. Guevara handles the smoker, Swulius bakes and runs the front, and together they’re turning out tacos, brisket, and specials that are simple, unpretentious, and exactly what the neighborhood seems to want. It's to-go only, but you won’t mind—this food was made to be eaten over a hood of a car, or standing with a friend on the sidewalk.
Best for: Casual meat sweats from a meal eaten off the hood of a car
Via Triozzi
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Via Triozzi is the kind of Italian place where you sit at the bar and get talked into a second plate of pasta. They’ll tell you it’s because they just made it fresh, and you’ll believe them. The cacio e pepe is salty and rich in a way that feels like a perfect indulgence.
Best for: Impromptu date nights that turn into two pastas, one bottle of wine, and a promise to come back
