Texas doesn’t have any Michelin-starred restaurants, but Irving’s new Ritz-Carlton hotel is about to have a new Italian steakhouse with Michelin pedigree.
Knife Italian, Dallas chef John Tesar’s newest restaurant, is slated to open Tuesday, March 19, 2024. Some of its menu is inspired by the steak and seafood dishes at Knife & Spoon in Orlando, Tesar’s restaurant that won a Michelin star in 2022.
Dallasites might recognize some of the pastas and steaks from Tesar’s 10-year-old Knife restaurant on Mockingbird Lane.
The hotel was once Four Seasons Resort at Las Colinas, but was rebranded as a Ritz-Carlton in January 2024. (D-FW’s other Ritz is in Uptown Dallas.)
Knife Italian will serve steak, seafood, pizza and pasta inspired by the chef’s upbringing in New York. It serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, and Tesar’s aim is for any meal to feel “elaborate.”
The Irving/Las Colinas hotel restaurant will also sell the Ozersky, Tesar’s cheeseburger with red onion named for the late food writer Josh Ozersky. A cheeseburger makes sense at a ritzy hotel in Texas, Tesar said.
Tesar has been a friend to well-known people in the food world like Anthony Bourdain, but he was also called Dallas’ “most hated chef” by D Magazine in 2011. He described himself to The Dallas Morning News as a former “rageaholic.” In the past decade or so, he appeared on Bravo TV show Top Chef and opened restaurants in Dallas, Plano, Orlando and near Laguna Beach, Calif.
He said in 2022: “For me, I’ve always been the underdog — the bad boy.”
That doesn’t feel like the case in Irving/Las Colinas. Tesar understands the assignment at the luxurious, rebranded Ritz, and the restaurant has a bold design, with 10-foot-high art swirled in hot pinks and oranges, and purposefully mismatched tables that give the dining room a modern air.
Knife Italian looks like a jet-setting vacationer wearing an expensive sun hat and shades.
Diners can opt for oysters with cucumber mignonette or yellowtail crudo with Texas grapefruit to start, the chef said during a walkthrough of the restaurant. Pastas include gnocchi with blue crab, squid ink bucatini and lobster agnolotti. Then there’s pork chop Milanese and grilled whole fish as two main-course options. Those who appreciate Tesar’s dry-age steaks at Dallas restaurant Knife might be dazzled by options of beef both small (6 ounces) and large (32 ounces), and dry-aged as long as 240 days. The Bistecca a la Las Colinas is a honking 48-ounce porterhouse.
A separate bar and pizza room seems like a good place for solo travelers to eat: Chefs will put on a show as they place pizzas in a roaring oven. Beyond the expected pepperoni pizza, Knife Italian will also sell a white clam pizza and a potato, truffle and duck egg option.
The lunch menu calls for Italian-inspired dishes with a more casual vibe. Options include a muffaletta and open-faced lobster sandwich.
Knife Italian is inside the main entrance of the newly rebranded Ritz-Carlton at 4150 N. MacArthur Blvd., Irving. Reservations available on OpenTable. Two private rooms can be reserved and seat 10 and 16 guests. Knife Italian is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and closed from 2-5 p.m. daily.
Why doesn’t Dallas have any Michelin-starred restaurants?
The Michelin Guide is considered one of the highest levels of culinary excellence. Anonymous inspectors award up to three Michelin stars to the world’s best restaurants.
Importantly, France-based Michelin designates parts of the world where it sends its inspectors. Texas is not and has never been on Michelin’s map, meaning that no restaurant in Dallas-Fort Worth or beyond is eligible to receive a Michelin star. It is, however, a designation that many fine-dining chefs wish were available in Texas; a Michelin nod brings serious cache — and customers.
Read Claire Ballor’s story about why chefs want Michelin to look at Texas. In it, she explains how visitors’ bureaus in cities like Orlando paid Michelin to start a guide in parts of Florida. Could Texas be next?
