Repeat after me: American. Italian. Barbecue. Those three categories describe a significant segment of the most exciting restaurants opening in Dallas-Fort Worth — from Garland to Irving, Highland Park to Fort Worth — in 2024.
A few outliers exist, and we celebrate those even more. Pan-Caribbean restaurant in McKinney Aguasal seeks to take diners on a visit to Jamaica or Puerto Rico, if only on the plate. A modern European restaurant will help redefine Dallas’ long-time Quadrangle, now coolly called The Quad. And Fort Worth has crossed our minds as North Texas’ most interesting food city: A bar will open in a converted gas station, and a mysterious upscale restaurant from the owners of Mister Charles will spring up near the museums.
In 2024, we’ll also spill some ink on Delilah, a sexy restaurant in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Miami coming to Dallas. If you’ve been paying attention to the way glitzy restaurants make their way across the country, you’ll know that Delilah and Dallas go together like martinis and olives.
We predict 2024 will be a year of discovery, when time will tell if Dallas-Fort Worth can be the dining destination we deserve. I’m rooting for it.
Restaurants listed in order of expected opening date.
Joey in Dallas’ NorthPark Center
Canadian company Joey has moved its modern American restaurant into North Texas, first at NorthPark Center, with others to follow in Uptown Dallas and a sibling pub in East Dallas. Joey’s menu reads like a more global version of Houston’s, with dishes ranging from sake-glazed Chilean sea bass to steak frites, chicken Parmesan and burgers. Readers have asked whether Joey is an Australian restaurant — perhaps because kangaroo babies are called joeys — but no, there’s no Australian influence here.
Joey took over the former Seasons 52.
- Opening date: Jan. 18, 2024 [read more about it here]
- Cuisine: modern American
- Address: 8687 N. Central Expressway, Suite 307, Dallas
Smith Spot BBQ in Garland
Former professional football player Terrance Smith spent nearly a decade in the mortgage industry, but he wasn’t comfortable in that job. “I was just too big for the desk,” he says. He started selling barbecue on Sundays at the Dallas Farmers Market in 2019, and after an office-wide layoff in 2021, Smith turned his weekend hobby into a full-time gig.
Smith has since outgrown the farmers market, partly because his food went viral on Instagram, and his lines of barbecue fans stretched to dozens or more, clogging walkways. In 2024, Smith left the market and opened a lunch and dinner barbecue joint in his hometown, Garland, a few miles from where he won a football state championship in 1999. The new Smith Spot BBQ has a familiar menu of brisket mac and cheese, nachos, tacos, turkey legs, baked beans, coleslaw and loaded sweet potatoes.
- Opening date: March 3, 2024. Open Sundays only, 11 a.m. until sellout.
- Cuisine: barbecue
- Address: 823 Main St., Garland
Ribbee’s in Fort Worth
Goldee’s Barbecue in Fort Worth is one of the most famous barbecue joints in the country, following several declarations that it serves the best smoked meat in Texas. In 2024, we’ll get a taste of what they’re smoking next: five varieties of ribs at a new — and very focused — restaurant called Ribbee’s. This ribs-only spot comes from best friends Jonny White, Lane Milne and Jalen Heard, three of the five Goldee’s owners. Early reviews are great.
- Opening date: March 7, 2024 [read more about it here]
- Cuisine: barbecue
- Address: 923 E. Seminary Drive, Fort Worth
Knife Italian in Irving/Las Colinas
Many have visited chef John Tesar’s Knife steakhouse over its nearly 10 years in Dallas. In 2024, Tesar opened a related Italian-steakhouse hybrid called Knife Italian in Irving/Las Colinas. It moved into the former Four Seasons Resort and Club Dallas at Las Colinas, a property that’s being rebranded as the Ritz-Carlton Dallas, Las Colinas, after a $55 million glow-up.
“It is a steakhouse, but it’s going to be very, very Italian,” Tesar says. In 2023, he bought $60,000 worth of beef to dry-age. The restaurant makes its own focaccia, pizza dough and pasta and serves other Italian dishes like chicken scarpariello, eggplant Parm and oxtail ravioli.
“It’ll be like a trip to Italy. And also a steakhouse,” he says. “I should have done this a long time ago.”
- Opening date: March 19, 2024 [read more about it here]
- Cuisine: Italian and steak
- Address: 4150 N. MacArthur Blvd. (in the former Four Seasons Resort, which becomes a Ritz-Carlton), Irving
Goldie’s in Dallas’ Lake Highlands
For nearly a year, Lake Highlands residents have been asking about what will open at Walnut Hill Lane and Audelia Road, in place of the closed RM 12:20 Bistro. “There were a bunch of people going after the space,” says neighbor and restaurateur Brandon Hays, who co-owns Sfuzzi, High Fives, Double D’s and more. He secured the lease with his wife Brittany Grignon, who co-owns Session Pilates. They partnered with Brittni Clayton, recently the general manager at El Carlos, to open what Hays calls a “classic, timeless” restaurant. The menu includes steaks, entree salads, pastas, chicken and dumplings, and “fun sides,” he says.
- Opening date: March 25, 2024 [read more about it here]
- Cuisine: American
- Address: 9850 Walnut Hill Lane, Suite 305, Dallas
Fortunate Son in downtown Garland
Goodfriend Beer Garden and Burger House owners Matt Tobin and Josh Yingling, joined by chefs David Peña and Floyd Gaiser, are strumming a reinvention story in downtown Garland — one that might bring foodies from all over D-FW to this historic area. Cue the opening riffs of “Fortunate Son” by Creedence Clearwater Revival as we tell you more: Some of the buildings in this part of Garland are over 100 years old, but the square also has a new city park. Fortunate Son sells house-made pasta and Italian entrees like meatball rigatoni. The pizza is specifically from New Haven, Connecticut: thin crust and “leopard” in look, from the charred black spots on the crust, as Peña explains. What’s the Connecticut connection to Texas? Tobin learned to love New Haven pizza as a kid when he visited his grandparents up north. Plus, it’s a style of pizza that hasn’t proliferated in D-FW. Yet.
- Opening date: March 25, 2024 [read more about it here]
- Cuisine: New Haven-style pizza
- Address: 500 Main St., Garland
Radici in Farmers Branch
Farmers Branch is going through a food boom, and we have TV chef Tiffany Derry to thank for flaming the fire. After her nationally-known restaurant Roots Southern Table opened in 2021, a half-dozen other restaurants are slated to open within a few miles of Farmers Branch’s 635-and-35E corridor in 2024. Derry’s Italian restaurant Radici tops our list as the most exciting newcomer, because she worked in Italian restaurants for years before opening her Southern spot. Radici is another reason to set your maps to Farmers Branch.
- Opening date: May 2024 [read more about it here]
- Cuisine: Italian
- Address: 12990 Bee St., Farmers Branch
Goodwins in East Dallas
“I’ve done a million burgers,” says Dallas chef Jeff Bekavac. “Maybe a million and one.” The new Greenville Avenue restaurant he opened with business partner Austin Rodgers and Smoky Rose owner David Cash has a burger, yes it does. Goodwins strives to serve a sexier version of the food you’ve eaten a million times: You want a snackable starter, and here, it’s cheese beignets; you pick meatballs to share, and theirs are chicken kofta with cucumber tzatziki; if it’s roast chicken for dinner, theirs is a confit leg and thigh with smashed Yukon potatoes. The restaurant taking over the longtime Blue Goose Cantina on Lower Greenville has two patios; a big, brass bar top; an open kitchen; a lengthy wine list; and a darker, moodier cocktail spot called Goose Bar next door. At Goose Bar, drinks come “fast and often,” Bekavac says.
The two restaurateurs have worked at some of Dallas’ beloved spots like Neighborhood Services, Nick & Sam’s, Cane Rosso and more. They designed Goodwins to have “a big city restaurant feel,” Rodgers says. “You could pick this up and put this in New York City.” Aha: A restaurant that started in Dallas but could compete nationally. We love to see it.
- Opening date: May 21, 2024 [read more about it here]
- Cuisine: American
- Address: 2905 Greenville Ave., Dallas
Big Chicken in Fort Worth
Shaquille O’Neal’s fast-food joint Big Chicken has big plans in North Texas. The expansion starts in Fort Worth, near Alliance Town Center, and CEO Josh Halpern plans to open as many as eight Big Chickens in Texas by the end of 2024. Plano is another focal point because it’s close to the home Shaq purchased in Collin County in 2022. “We absolutely want to get one close to the Big Fella because he would love the opportunity to eat Big Chicken when he’s in his D-FW home,” Halpern says.
“Big” is what customers expect, and a sloppy sandwich called The Ultimate is a slam dunk. It has fried chicken, mac and cheese, crispy fried onions and garlic barbecue aioli.
- Opening date: Sept. 3, 2024 [read more about it here]
- Cuisine: fried chicken
- Address: 9755 North Freeway, Fort Worth
Le PasSage in Dallas
Le PasSage is destined to be one of Dallas’ fine-dining destinations of 2024. Restaurateur Stephan Courseau (of Georgie, Le Bilboquet and Knox Bistro in Dallas) is partnering with French-born chef Bruno Davaillon to open a Vietnamese-leaning restaurant anchored in French culinary techniques. The restaurant is at the base of the Katy Trail, in a new building with $3-million-plus residences.
- Opening date: Oct. 18, 2024 [read more about it here]
- Cuisine: French-Asian
- Address: 4205 Buena Vista St., Dallas
Aguasal in McKinney
Keep an eye on chef Tanner Agar. As the CEO and creative director of Rye in East Dallas and its next-door speakeasy Apothecary — a place we called “Dallas’ most impressive date-night spot” in 2021 — Agar and his team aren’t reading from any kind of culinary script. Their food and drinks are perplexing and exciting, and both of those words could be used to describe their coming-soon pan-Caribbean restaurant Aguasal in downtown McKinney. The restaurant’s menu is inspired by Mexican, Trinidadian, Jamaican, Puerto Rican and Cuban cuisines. The second-floor cocktail menu will be heavy on sugar cane- and agave-based drinks.
“Our goal is to create a place for everyday vacations,” Agar says.
The restaurant will be in downtown McKinney because that’s where Rye started. In August 2022, McKinney’s Rye restaurant caught fire and closed. Agar confirms that Aguasal is not a Rye replacement, nor is it at the same address. “We’d love for Rye to be back [in McKinney],” he says. “But it was more important to us to find a way back to the community than to wait for it to be Rye, specifically.”
- Opening date: TBD
- Cuisine: pan-Caribbean
- Address: 214 E. Louisiana St., McKinney
Sí Sí Sí on Fitzhugh Avenue in Dallas
Remember Brandon Hays and Brittany Grignon, the couple opening Goldie’s in Lake Highlands? They’re also working on a tequila bar. Joining them are Alex Snodgrass, the author of bestselling book The Defined Dish; her husband Clayton Snodgrass; and brothers Chris, Martin and DJ Donohoe.
“We’re all big tequila fans, so it all made sense,” Hays says.
The 70-seat lounge is meant to feel like a “clubhouse,” a private den for tequila aficionados, Hays says. It’s less of a party, more of an educational spot for those who love non-additive tequilas and other agave spirits like raicilla. Sí Sí Sí will be by invitation only, but without “those fancy initiation fees,” he says.
- Opening date: TBD
- Cuisine: tequila
- Address: 3223 N. Fitzhugh Ave., Dallas
A word about Fitzhugh Avenue in Dallas
Sí Sí Sí's opening secures that sector of Fitzhugh as a bona fide dining destination that will rival nearby Knox Street. There’s the bistro that started it all, Beverley’s, and its cocktail lounge Clifton Club. Around the corner on Cole Avenue, there’s Maison Chinoise, an upscale Chinese restaurant, and its speakeasy, Regines. At the Katy Trail, coming-soon French-Asian restaurant Le PasSage and its all-day restaurant The Rose Cafe are slated for a 2024 debut. Fitzhugh is on fire.
Victory Social in Dallas’ Victory Park
Restaurateur Kevin Lillis was living in New York City when new-age food halls were all the rage, and he opened several of them across the country. Now a D-FW resident and the former operator of the AT&T Discovery District’s food hall, Lillis is opening a new food hall at the base of the EY tower in Dallas’ Victory Park with his company, Hospitality Alliance. Victory Social will be a 12,000-square-foot space that will have a variety of food stands from local chefs serving breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner and cocktails. “There will be Mexican, pizza, fried chicken, a grill,” Lillis says. Chef Joshua Harmon, who makes some of Dallas’ best fried chicken at Birdie in the AT&T Discovery District, is expected to open a food stall at Victory Social.
- Opening date: TBD
- Cuisine: all types, in a fast-casual food hall format
- Address: 2323 Victory Ave. (inside the One Victory Park building), Dallas
Fuel Stop 80 in Fort Worth
Restaurateur Gigi Howell and her business partner have a passion for Westland, a neighborhood in West Fort Worth. Howell grew up there, riding her bike to the gas station she’ll now convert into a cocktail bar and name it Fuel Stop 80. (It’s named for Highway 80, once a main thoroughfare before Highways 20 and 30 were built.) Howell’s love for the old buildings in Westland in contagious, and it’s easy to feel second-hand excitement as she talks about setting up a full bar and a patio at the gas station where her grandparents used to have a tab. Fuel Stop 80 customers will be able to order burgers from JD’s Hamburger’s, Howell’s neighboring restaurant, or pizza from Margie’s Italian Gardens, a resurrected Italian spot that she plans to open in 2024.
“I don’t care where you live, what you make. Everybody is welcome,” Howell says.
- Opening date: TBD
- Cuisine: cocktails and beer
- Address: 9813 Camp Bowie West Blvd., Fort Worth
Barley in Southlake
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rye restaurant CEO Tanner Agar and his friends were given a free trailer, with instructions: If you can get this thing off of my property, you can have it. They rebuilt it into a rolling restaurant and parked it at Martin House Brewery in Fort Worth. The Barley “gastrovan” will continue selling food in Fort Worth, but in 2024, the team plans to open a restaurant in Southlake by the same name, selling similar food.
Chef Zach Garner’s menu will include sweet tea brined chicken nuggets, a New Orleans inspired crawfish roll, and a “blazin’” beef taco. “We built it to [sell] comfort food during a very scary and unsure time,” Agar says. Now, they are ready to have fun with it in Southlake.
- Opening date: TBD
- Cuisine: creative American gastropub
- Address: 2105 W. Southlake Blvd., Southlake
Caffe Lucca in Highland Park
Two Dallas Cowboys and a restaurant owner walk into a bar. This isn’t a setup, it’s the start of a friendship and a restaurant. Caffe Lucca will be an Italian restaurant from former Cowboys coach Jason Garrett, former NFL quarterback Babe Laufenberg and Dallas pasta guy Julian Barsotti. It’s named for Laufenberg’s late son Luke Laufenberg, and it’s meant to be a convivial meet-up spot for coffee, Italian snacks and entrees, and to-go food like pasta and meatballs.
- Opening date: TBD
- Cuisine: Italian
- Address: 4212 Oak Lawn Ave., Dallas
Meet Me Outside in Far North Dallas
An ice house named Meet Me Outside is expected to open near Preston and Campbell roads in Dallas. It comes from Hooper Hospitality Concepts, the group that opened The Saint in Dallas and has plans to expand its coffee company Good Neighbor to at least 10 addresses in Texas. Hooper is investing heavily in D-FW, and its Asian restaurant Night Rooster is another high-profile spot expected to open in Dallas’ Design District in 2024. “The restaurant scene here is big, and there is opportunity,” says Culinary Director Jacob Williamson.
But we’re here to talk about Meet Me Outside. Williamson describes the menu as Americana, with an expansive beer and cocktail list. Soon, there’ll be one in Boerne, Texas, too. The Dallas ice house is notable because that area — south of Plano, northwest of Addison — could use an indoor-outdoor, family-friendly spot.
- Opening date: fourth quarter of 2024
- Cuisine: Americana
- Address: 6220 McCallum Blvd., Dallas
Catch in Uptown Dallas
As part of a massive overhaul of the nearly 100-year-old Maple Terrace in Dallas, Texas billionaire Tilman Fertitta and his team plan to open seafood restaurant Catch in the 1920s-era development. Catch originated in New York City in 2011 and has become a celebrity magnet at its restaurants in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. In 2016, The Daily Beast called Catch “LA’s coolest celebrity restaurant,” listing Cindy Crawford, Sylvester Stallone, Kendall Jenner, Jamie Foxx, Paris Hilton and Millie Bobby Brown as customers. Catch in Dallas might fit right in, as the landmark Maple Terrace property has its own celebrity past hosting Judy Garland, Dean Martin, Elvis Presley and Liza Minnelli.
- Opening date: fourth quarter of 2024
- Cuisine: seafood
- Address: 3001 Maple Ave., Dallas
Delilah in the Dallas Design District
Extravagant supper club Delilah has restaurants in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Miami. Dallas is the clear next stop, right? Right, confirms h.wood Group co-founder John Terzian.
“I don’t think Delilah can be taken anywhere,” Terzian points out. “It can and should only be in a handful of cities in the world — and Dallas is one of those.” He was attracted by Dallas’ fashion houses and sports franchises. The restaurant is a “spectacle,” Terzian says, with three private rooms, one with a wine cellar. Three stages will host burlesque performers, live bands or, more likely, both. Terzian calls Delilah “a true essence of the 1920s and 1930s supper clubs,” where its fabulous guests are drinking, drinking, drinking and ordering plates of lobster, branzino, king crab pasta and beef wellington. (One amusing addition is Delilah’s Famous Chicken Tenders, a $27 plate that will yank you back to present day.)
We’re dreaming of The JoJo, a vodka, St. Germain and prosecco cocktail named after one of Terzian’s first customers. JoJo now lives in Dallas, and her cocktail will certainly make the menu here, Terzian says.
- Opening date: fourth quarter of 2024
- Cuisine: extravagant supper club
- Address: 1616 Hi Line Drive, Dallas
Mamani in Uptown Dallas
Have you been to the Quadrangle in Uptown Dallas recently? The 4-acre plot will soon have five freestanding restaurants at the base of a new 12-story office building. The hope is to create a more pedestrian-friendly feeling in this heart-of-Dallas spot, explained Ramsey March, executive managing director and partner of Stream Realty’s development group. Mamani will be a modern European fine dining restaurant from Henry Cohanim and Brandon Cohanim, brothers and co-owners of Dallas Japanese restaurant Namo and a new lounge, Bar Colette. The brothers hired French-born culinary director Christophe De Lellis, who left a high-profile job in Las Vegas as the executive chef of Joël Robuchon and L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon. Impressive.
- Opening date: December 2024
- Cuisine: modern European
- Address: 2681 Howell St., Dallas
[Names to be determined] in Fort Worth and Dallas
And now for a puzzling finale. The company that opened Dallas’ most opulent restaurant in 2023, Mister Charles, has alluring growth plans in 2024. We’ll share two restaurants in the works from Duro Hospitality (which owns The Charles, El Carlos Elegante, Mister Charles, Sister and the coffee shop Cafe Duro):
- The company will open a restaurant across the street from the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, on the first floor of a new Crescent Real Estate office building. Duro co-owner Chas Martin grew up in Fort Worth. The 3,500-square-foot restaurant and patio will be a high-end concept they haven’t done before. It won’t be Italian. (Any guesses?)
- Duro Hospitality also has plans to take over the former Homewood restaurant space on Oak Lawn Avenue in Dallas, near Highland Park. Martin says the cuisine isn’t set yet, nor is the timeline.
“We are insanely particular and we don’t need to grow,” Martin says. But grow they will, to two high-profile parts of Dallas and Fort Worth.
Original story published Dec. 26, 2023 and updated Feb. 26, 2024, June 10, 2024 and Aug. 20, 2024.
