If you’re a Texan who likes to fly to Las Vegas to eat at celebrity chefs’ restaurants, you soon won’t have to make the trip.
A surge of restaurants in Sin City are moving to North Texas — or already here — bringing personality and theatricality to our busy dining scene. Take away the blackjack tables, and Dallas can be just as big and bold as Vegas.
Catch
Seafood restaurant Catch originated in New York, but it also has restaurants in Aspen, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, with another coming soon in Miami. In an interesting Texas twist, Houston Rockets owner and billionaire Tilman Fertitta is behind Catch’s expansion. The restaurant is expected to open in 2024 at Maple Terrace, one of Dallas’ most historic buildings dating back to 1925.
Catch will be at 3001 Maple Ave. (on the Maple Terrace grounds), Dallas. It’s expected to open in 2024.
La Neta Cocina y Lounge
Modern Mexican restaurant La Neta Cocina y Lounge, which originated in Las Vegas, is expected to open in Dallas in February 2023. It’s the company’s first expansion outside of Nevada. “We looked in Arizona,” says CEO Ryan Labbe. “We looked in Austin. We looked in parts of California. When I went to Dallas, I kept feeling like I shouldn’t leave — kind of like the feeling I had when I moved to Las Vegas.”
La Neta will be at 2525 Elm St. (at The Epic), Dallas. The restaurant is expected to open Feb. 20, 2023.
Black Tap Burgers & Beer
As we reported in mid-2022, following the expansion map for Black Tap Craft Burgers & Beer is a wild journey: from New York City’s SoHo to Las Vegas, Disneyland, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Iraq and Bahrain. Now it’s time to focus domestically, with restaurants coming soon in Dallas, Nashville and Miami.
The Dallas restaurant comes from husband-wife team Chris Barish and Julie Mulligan plus Rich Hicks, who founded Pie Tap Pizza Workshop + Bar and helped open The Mexican in Dallas. Black Tap’s best-seller is the Texan burger, a beef patty topped with bacon, cheddar, crispy onions, mayo and Sweet Baby Ray’s barbecue sauce that, ironically, did not originate in Texas. It is also known for its over-the-top milkshakes called CrazyShakes.
Black Tap Burgers & Beer will be at 2475 Victory Park Lane, Suite 120, Dallas. It’s expected to open in summer 2023.
Sugar Factory
Sweets shop Sugar Factory isn’t exactly what its name says. More than a factory, it’s an all-out restaurant party, where music blasts from a DJ booth while customers eat dinner or share a giant $99 ice cream sundae. It’s the kind of place where the Kardashian sisters, Drake and Mariah Carey have been spotted.
The first Sugar Factory opened in Las Vegas in 2009, and the Dallas restaurant opened in November 2021.
Sugar Factory is at 1900 Cedar Springs Road, Dallas.
Sadelle’s
Sadelle’s is a brunch spot that originated in New York City and expanded to Vegas. Whether in New York, Nevada or Texas, the idea at Sadelle’s is that diners can eat breakfast and brunch food all day long. Brunch gets boozy, of course, with Bellinis and mimosas. It’s almost like there’s no concept of time at Sadelle’s, which is something we always find ourselves saying in Vegas.
Sadelle’s is at 1 Highland Park Village, Dallas.
Carbone
We can’t mention Sadelle’s without talking about Carbone, a Michelin-starred Italian restaurant owned by the same parent company. Again, this concept comes from New York City, but again, it finds a huge clientele in Vegas — and soon in Dallas — by serving what we’ve called “fabulously flashy Italian food.”
Carbone isn’t the type of place you pop into; it’s your destination for the evening.
We love the dominance, especially in a steak city like Dallas.
Carbone is at 1617 Hi Line Drive, Dallas.
Nusr-Et
We heard about Salt Bae first on Instagram. This Turkish butcher salts steaks with flair, you could call it, in a way that’s caught the eye of just about everybody watching food videos online. His first steakhouse opened in Istanbul in 2010, and chef-owner Nusret Gökçe then seized his several years of fame by opening restaurants all over the globe. Nusr-Et feels right at home in Las Vegas, where partiers can order a steak coated in gold flakes for $650 or splurge on a shareable Wagyu tomahawk steak for $2,700. Dallas’ Nusr-Et opened in March 2021, bringing all of that ridiculous glitz to Texas.
Nusr-Et is at 1900 N. Pearl St., Dallas.
Hattie B’s Hot Chicken
If Las Vegas is famous for taking one region’s cuisine and over-commercializing it, we’re hopeful Dallas can replicate its restaurants with a little more soul. Hattie B’s is a Nashville hot chicken restaurant with a simple menu and a fanatical fanbase. The family-owned company has grown in the past few years, not only to Vegas’ Cosmopolitan hotel but also to Memphis and Atlanta. It’s was one of Dallas’ most anticipated restaurants last year.
Hattie B’s Hot Chicken is at 3000 Main St., Dallas.
STK
STK was expected to move into Uptown Dallas in 2015, but that never happened. It finally arrived in late 2022, this time on McKinney Avenue, home of the former Perry’s Steakhouse (which moved). STK, like several restaurants on this list, originated in New York City. Each restaurant in cities like Miami and Vegas have what they call a “vibe-driven” dinner experience. You know what that means: DJs, people partying on leather banquettes, and bottles of Champagne.
STK is at 2000 McKinney Ave., Dallas.
Gordon Ramsay Fish & Chips
One of the biggest food-news stories in Dallas-Fort Worth in 2021 was that Gordon Ramsay had moved his restaurant headquarters to Irving. Today, a fleet of chefs and financial types are planning for a rapid expansion of the TV chef’s restaurant presence worldwide. Ramsay doesn’t have any restaurants in North Texas yet, but CEO Norman Abdallah says Gordon Ramsay Fish & Chips will open here at some point. That restaurant originated in Las Vegas.
No address or date set for Gordon Ramsay Fish & Chips’ entry into Dallas-Fort Worth.
La Pizza and La Pasta, inside Eataly
Eataly, a wonderland of pasta, meat and wine, has just seven shops in the United States, two of those being in Dallas and Vegas. La Pizza and La Pasta are lively restaurants in the middle of the action where diners can order antipasti, fried bites like arancini, and pizza and pasta.
La Pizza and La Pasta is at 8687 N. Central Expressway, Dallas, inside Eataly at NorthPark Center.
Gilley’s
Gilley’s honky tonk has a fascinating past as a place where Emmylou Harris, Loretta Lynn and others performed at the original in Pasadena, Texas, a city southeast of Houston. The club operated near Gulf Coast from 1970 to 1990. A Texas-themed offshoot opened in Las Vegas’ Treasure Island casino in the late ‘90s, then in Dallas in 2003. Modeling after what Texans (apparently) like to do, the Las Vegas Gilley’s is a loud Southern spot with barbecue, line-dancing and mechanical bull riding.
Gilley’s Dallas is at 1135 Botham Jean Blvd., Dallas.
Nobu
Restaurants in Dallas and Vegas come and go, but Nobu has stuck around. The original opened in Los Angeles in 1987. It landed in Vegas in 1995 and in Dallas in 2005. Its staying power shows a nimble balance in two fickle dining cities, proving that chef Nobu Matsuhisa’s Japanese fusion is both inventive and timeless.
Nobu Dallas is at 400 Crescent Court, Dallas.
Not in North Texas, but close: Guy Fieri’s American Kitchen & Bar in Oklahoma
Casinos! That’s something Nevada and Texas don’t share. And that’s where our neighbor to the north comes in.
Take a trip to the other side of the border, to Choctaw Casinos & Resorts in Oklahoma, and the Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives frontman Guy Fieri has a restaurant selling trash can nachos, chicken tenders, wings and burgers. The Choctaw menu is similar to the one in Vegas, at The Linq Hotel & Casino.
Fieri also operates a ghost kitchen named Flavortown. Flavortown has commercial kitchens in Allen, Dallas, Frisco, Plano and Southlake, as well as from four kitchens in Las Vegas. (The brand is also in 35 states and in Washington, D.C.)
Guy Fieri’s American Kitchen & Bar is at 4216 S. Highway 69/75, Durant, Oklahoma.
Original story written Feb. 22, 2022 and updated Jan. 10, 2023.
