When Chicago chef and restaurant operator Danny Grant opens two new restaurants in downtown Dallas, he hopes they will be Michelin contenders. He was awarded two Michelin stars in 2011 and 2012, and he was the youngest chef in the United States to earn that honor.
Grant’s Dallas restaurants Monarch and Kessaku are expected to open in March. They will be located on the 49th and 50th floors of The National, a renovated building that recently reopened in downtown Dallas.
Update on Feb. 8, 2020: Monarch is expected to open March 10. Eric Dreyer was recently named executive chef. Kessaku will open at the end of March.
Grant said he’s excited to open a restaurant outside of his home city of Chicago.
“I’m excited to push more energy and life into that area of downtown,” he said in an interview in October, when he traveled to Dallas to work on his new restaurants.
Grant and his team operate a handful of high-profile eateries in Chicago and Scottsdale, Ariz. His Dallas restaurants will take some inspiration from Etta, a wood-fired pizza and pasta restaurant; and Maple & Ash, a steakhouse.
Monarch is the flagship restaurant opening at The National and will be a wood-fired modern Italian restaurant. In 2019, Grant was standing in a jungle in Tulum, Mexico, looking at a wood-fired oven, and decided he wanted to open a restaurant centered on the simple, beautiful hearth. Diners at Monarch will be able to see the orange glow of the fire from nearly every seat.
He plans to use the wood-fired oven for dishes like salt-roasted whole fish and octopus a la plancha. Chefs will also bake focaccia in the oven.
A saltwater tank will be installed within eyeshot of the dining room, which means customers will be able to watch chefs fish out prawns with a net, then cook them over fire, Grant said.
A pasta menu will include dishes Grant grew up eating like black truffle pasta stuffed with homemade ricotta. For those who want to share, large-format dishes like a 50-ounce porterhouse steak cooked in coals will be on the menu.
Grant said he hopes the high-in-the-sky restaurant will have a “sense of royalty,” both in its decor and with its customer service.
“We want everyone to feel hugged and loved — like they’re the most important person in the world,” he said.
The restaurant will have a hidden chocolate and cognac room, inspired by the ambience at private clubs in London, Grant said. (A hidden chocolate room, you say!? We’ll share more info when we have it.)
Kessaku is described as a “jewel box” of a restaurant — a sushi and cocktail bar on the glammy 50th floor.
Grant has already proofed the concept by opening a restaurant-within-a-restaurant at Maple & Ash in Chicago. That sushi bar is now a permanent addition to the steakhouse, and Grant believes Kessaku will work in Dallas, too.
Kessaku will have an “extensive” nigiri selection, Grant said, in addition to sashimi and crudos. He describes Kessaku’s food as “well-sourced, beautiful fish with light, warm rice.”
Some of it will be decadent, like king crab and truffles served as a sushi roll.
Monarch and Kessaku join a larger slate of restaurants at The National. The redeveloped building is also home to the Thompson Hotel, which has two restaurants named Catbird and Nine. Both are open; read more about them here.
Monarch and Kessaku are inside The National, at 1401 Elm St., Dallas. Both restaurants are expected to open in March 2021.
