Dallas.
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38 places
Rooms you can walk into, ranked the way I would send you.
Key: what the badges mean
★ Michelin star · Bib Bib Gourmand · Green ★ Michelin Green Star · Michelin in the Michelin guide, no distinction · J Jeff's own note · Jeff ★★★★☆ 2019 his own rating out of five, and the year he gave it · new the venue itself opened recently · just added recently added to Jeff's list, whatever its age · 2◆ independent chef/industry recommendations · ! hygiene caution in force · ? no current public hygiene record, not a caution · keep walking Jeff has been and would walk past it · the line under a name says when to go: Destination (plan around it) / Solid (the dependable send) / Listed (on the radar). Under it, where the entry states one: how the room takes bookings, and the date I last checked the entry.
Go here first.
Where I'd actually send you first: the rooms I'd put a visitor in on night one, in town rather than an hour down the highway, spread so six cards are six different answers. Producers, markets and the rest of the city are below.
Goldee's BarbecueBibjust added
Destination · Texas barbecue · Fort Worth · $$
walk-in
The brisket here is Choice grade and it comes off post oak tender enough that Texas Monthly's barbecue editor called it perfect.
Một Hai BaBibjust added
Destination · Vietnamese-French · Lakewood · $$$
book ahead
Peja Krstic wraps beef brisket and shallot marmalade inside steamed bao at Một Hai Ba.
Panther City BBQMichelin
Destination · Barbecue · Near Southside · $$
walk-in
Panther City layers creamed corn, chopped brisket, queso fresco, cilantro and hot sauce into a cup and calls it brisket elote, and Texas Monthly calls it a full meal.
LuciaBibjust added
Destination · Italian · Bishop Arts · $$$
booking essential
David Uygur cures every meat Lucia serves in a room he built for it, about eight of them on the board a night, and the prosciutto on the board now has been hanging two and a half years.
Bar Colette
Destination · Cocktails · West Village · $$$
book ahead
The Carrot Cake at Bar Colette is built on bonded rye, cream sherry, malt, spiced carrots and egg, which is a savoury drink pretending to be a dessert.
Apothecary
Solid · Cocktails · Lower Greenville · $$
walk-in
Julian Shaffer won the MICHELIN Guide Texas Exceptional Cocktails award in 2024 while bartending at Rye, and he now runs the list at Apothecary on Lower Greenville.
New & next.
Windmills
Listed · Indian · The Colony · $$$
book ahead
Windmills brews its own beer and cooks upscale Indian food in the same fourteen-thousand-square-foot building at Grandscape, with a grand piano on a stage at one end of it.
Somewhere tonight.
One tap hides everything shut today and everything that needs a booking, then sorts the rest by how close it is to you. I don’t publish opening hours, because they go stale faster than anyone can check them. Check the door before you go.
The heavyweights
Every room here has won a Michelin star or a place on a 50 Best list, or has simply been running for decades. 2 here.
Dayne's Craft Barbecue
Barbecue · Aledo · $$
walk-in
Dayne Weaver cooks pork belly on the same schedule as his briskets and sells it as bacon brisket, off a five-hundred-gallon offset a man in Saginaw welded for him.
Smoke'N Ash BBQMichelin
Texan-Ethiopian barbecue · Arlington · $$
walk-in
Smoke'N Ash dips its sliced brisket in awaze, a sauce of berbere spices and clarified butter, and serves the tray on injera the kitchen makes itself.
The dependable sends
Good cooking needs no occasion, and these are the ones I hand out on a normal Tuesday. 25 here.
Mister CharlesMichelinjust added
French-Italian · Dallas · $$$$
book ahead
The room is the 1912 Highland Park Soda Fountain with 38-foot ceilings over it, and the kitchen finishes a Dover sole at your table. The Infatuation scored it 8.6 in April 2026.
Vaqueros Texas Bar-B-Q
Barbecue · Grapevine · $$
walk-in
Vaqueros cooks cochinita pibil and birria tacos off a Texas barbecue pit, which is what got it onto the New York Times's list of the country's best new barbecue in 2023.
nonnaBib
Italian · Highland Park · $$$
book ahead
Up to ten pastas run at nonna on a given night, spaghetti and gnocchi among them.
Cattleack BarbequeBibjust added
Barbecue · Dallas · $$
walk-in
The Wagyu brisket comes off post oak, but Daniel Vaughn says the plates that shine here are the direct-heat ones, a chicken quarter with crisp skin and a pork steak dripping with mop sauce.
Smokey Joe's BBQjust added
Barbecue · Dallas · $$
walk-in
The pork ribs come off the pit with the skin crisped and laminated like Peking duck, and The Infatuation's Kevin Gray scored the room 8.6 on the strength of them.
Hurtado Barbecue
Barbecue · Arlington · $$
walk-in
The Big Red barbacoa tostada at Hurtado is smoked beef cheeks braised in the Waco-born soft drink, on beef-tallow refried beans under salsa verde, cotija and raw onion.
On my list
These are on my list; I haven't been yet. 4 here.
WorldSpringsjust added
Sights · Grandscape · $$
book ahead
More than forty pools sit on nine acres, each dosed to match the mineral profile of a named spring somewhere else in the world, from the Blue Lagoon to the Dead Sea.
Press Caféjust added
American · Clearfork · $$
book ahead
Felipe Armenta built a glass box on the Trinity hike-and-bike trail and named it for pressed sandwiches and French press coffee.
False Idol Brewing
Beer · North Richland Hills · $$
walk-in
False Idol aged Perpetual Contortion, an English barleywine at fourteen percent, for fifteen months in Ironroot whiskey barrels, with 903 Brewers and Vector Brewing in on the brew.
Little Tavernjust added
Contemporary American · Cultural District · $$
book ahead
Felipe Armenta and Graham Elliot put a smashburger, birria tacos and their own Zuni Cafe salad into the old F1 Smokehouse room on University Drive. Jorge Avina runs the kitchen.