“Everyone will always call it the old Bolsa space,” says chef Matt Balke, sitting next to his girlfriend, Corey McCombs, at the bar inside the beloved restaurant space in North Oak Cliff.
“But over the next year, I want it to be called our space.”
They’re the co-owners of Encina, a New American restaurant that opened quietly on Thursday, Oct. 8, to a room of Bolsa regulars.
Balke’s last job was as the executive chef of Bolsa, one of Dallas' first farm-to-table restaurants and a shining star as the dining scene heated up in North Oak Cliff over the past decade. McCombs was a Bolsa regular, finding herself bellied up to the bar at least once a week after her shifts working at Stephan Pyles, FT33 or Smoke.
When Bolsa closed in January 2020, Balke had ambitions of launching his own restaurant there, with its own identity. He and McCombs have done that with Encina, a restaurant named after Balke’s hometown. But they have kept some of the Bolsa charm in the homey, high-ceilinged room, with Balke noting that Bolsa’s “heart and soul” are still inside the restaurant.
The food’s still there, in a few instances: The sausage and pepper flatbread, which was on the menu since Day One at Bolsa in 2008, made it onto Encina’s menu, with permission from the original owner. It’s Balke’s favorite flatbread and it just felt right, he says.
“It’s perfect. Why try to fight it?”
The beef cheek pastrami from A Bar N Ranch is another Bolsa recipe that has new life at Encina.
The restaurant feels like an homage to several notable restaurants where Balke has worked. He apprenticed at York Street, a popular restaurant in Dallas from chef Sharon Hage. Because of her, nearly 50% of the menu is appetizers.
“Sharon was always good at small plates with big flavor,” Balke says. His small plates are simple, craveable dishes like dates stuffed with blue cheese and wrapped in bacon; skillet cornbread with sorghum butter; and black-eyed pea fritters.
McCombs and Balke also say the menu reflects some of their favorite bites and sips from restaurants and bars they’ve visited on vacations. At home, they have a stack of 150 menus they smuggled out of restaurants from all over the world.
McCombs created the cocktail menu. A drink called Mokonuts is a mix of mezcal, velvet falernum, coconut, lime and agave. It’s named after a restaurant they visited in Paris.
She loves the flavor of the Leona River, a cocktail named for the river that flows through Uvalde County, near Balke’s hometown. It’s made with cachaça (a Brazilian spirit similar to rum), green chartreuse, basil, lime and black pepper. She guesses the Flower Patch cocktail — a pink drink with strawberry-rosemary infused vodka, Grand Poppy amaro, lemon and sparkling wine — will be popular, in part because of the pretty color and the edible flower on top, supplied by North Texan Cynthia Mulcahy’s organic farm. Mulcahy supplied edible flowers to Bolsa, too.
The couple had Bolsa’s patio redone, making it more open, with plastic walls that can roll up to reveal a screened-in room during pleasant weather.
Eventually, Encina will do brunch, as Bolsa did. For now, the restaurant is open for dinner only.
Balke and McCombs say they’re “exhilarated” by the idea that their restaurant is finally launching, after a long and difficult year. They signed the lease for Encina in February, with plans to open by Memorial Day. Instead, the COVID-19 crisis pushed their plans back by nearly five months.
Today’s restaurant launch involves sanitizing every 10 minutes. All employees will be wearing masks. Balke and McCombs are just happy to serve customers during a year nearly devoid of dinner service.
“I think the biggest thing restaurants need to focus on is hospitality,” Balke says. “Especially now, as everybody’s learned to make their own sourdough and pimento cheese at home. People want to be waited on. To be served. And they want to be remembered.”
Encina is at 614 W. Davis St., Dallas. It opened Oct. 8, 2020. It’s open Monday through Saturday, for dinner. Reservations are recommended because of limited occupancies due to COVID-19. No takeout, for now.
