The Best Places in Dallas

1. Eater The 38 Essential Dallas Restaurants
2. D Magazine 2023 · Best Fried Chicken · Best of Big D
3. Dallas Observer 2025 · Best Fried Chicken · Best of Dallas

1. Dallas Observer 2024 · Best Desserts · Best of Dallas
2. D Magazine #42 · The 50 Best Restaurants

Red umbrellas cover the ceiling, a dumpling-making station runs in full view, and various family members compete to greet you at the door before George can get there. This Chinese American restaurant in north Dallas has been around forever, and co-owner April Kao still travels to China each year to pull regional ideas back into the menu. Handmade noodles and egg foo young anchor the regulars, but the dumplings are why Dallas Observer handed them a Best Dumplings nod.

1. Eater The 38 Essential Dallas Restaurants
2. Dallas Observer 2023 · Best Dumplings · Best of Dallas
3. Eater Local Legend

1. D Magazine 2024 · Best Spicy Cocktails · Best of Big D
2. D Magazine The Best New Restaurants in Dallas
3. Eater The 38 Essential Dallas Restaurants

The Sunday wait stretches to three hours, which tells you most of what you need to know about this South Indian restaurant tucked into a former Tex-Mex spot on Highway 635. The menu leans into Andhra Pradesh home cooking: dosas in several forms, idli, bisi bele bath, filter coffee, all landing on tables full of Telugu conversation. The New York Times put it on their Restaurant List in 2024, and the regulars looked unsurprised.

1. The New York Times 2024 · The Restaurant List
2. Texas Monthly Honorable Mentions · Texas’s Best New Restaurants

The walnut-heavy Beaux Arts lobby sets the tone at this downtown Dallas hotel, where the fixtures are bold and the lighting is the kind that makes everyone look like they have a secret. Rooms run toward warm and plush, and the suites are reportedly among the largest in the city. The heated rooftop pool stays open until midnight, cocktails included, which is a civilized policy for which the Adolphus deserves more credit than it gets.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The hardwood dance floor in the center of the main room is the whole argument here. This sprawling gay bar on Cedar Springs has multiple bars, several rooms, and a two-story outdoor patio, all draped in western kitsch and framed cowboys doing cowboy things. Two-stepping lessons run weekly, alongside karaoke, trivia, and drag shows. The crowd skews as welcoming as the staff will tell you: everyone's invited to the boot-scootin'.

1. Dallas Observer 2025 · Best Karaoke Spot · Best of Dallas
2. D Magazine 2024 · Best Gay Bar · Best of Big D
3. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide

A century-old Beaux Arts building in Uptown Dallas, the Stoneleigh is a hotel that its newer neighbors can't quite replicate no matter how hard they try. London designers Fettle refreshed the rooms by channeling Dorothy Draper, the original decorator, so the place reads classic rather than preserved-in-amber. An Italian supper club and a cocktail bar keep guests from wandering too far. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The cowhide upholstery and local artwork make clear that this is no generic chain drop-in: the Thompson Dallas is a city-center hotel that wears its Texas credentials alongside its Manhattan modernist bones. Rooms come with minibars stocked with Texas-made products, and a spacious spa sits on the ninth floor. The tower location means the views are part of the deal, and a modern Italian restaurant by a Michelin-starred chef handles dinner.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Dallas Observer Neighborhood Staples and Gems · The Top 50 Restaurants in Dallas Right Now
2. D Magazine 2025 · Best Chinese · Best of Big D

1. D Magazine #35 · The 50 Best Restaurants
2. D Magazine 2024 · Best Korean · Best of Big D
3. D Magazine 2025 · Best Korean BBQ · Best of Big D

1. Dallas Observer Classic Dallas Restaurants · The Top 50 Restaurants in Dallas Right Now
2. D Magazine 2023 · Best Japanese · Best of Big D
3. D Magazine 2024 · Best Japanese · Best of Big D

The cypress wood counter is the only seat that matters at this omakase spot tucked into Ross Avenue, where the format blends kaiseki composed bites with a procession of nigiri. Chef Paul Ko's cooking reads refined and quietly global, duck confit in phyllo giving way to delicate anago dusted with sansho pepper. "Kozy" is doing some heavy lifting in the name, given how sleek the room actually is, but the Michelin Guide listing is not.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. D Magazine The Best New Restaurants in Dallas

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. D Magazine #41 · The 50 Best Restaurants
2. Dallas Observer 2024 · Best Chinese · Best of Dallas
3. D Magazine 2025 · Best Dumplings · Best of Big D

1. Dallas Observer 2025 · Best Upscale Dessert · Best of Dallas
2. Dallas Observer 2024 · Best Steakhouse · Best of Dallas
3. Eater Steak · 14 Iconic Dallas Dishes Locals and Tourists Must Try

1. Dallas Observer Classic Dallas Restaurants · The Top 50 Restaurants in Dallas Right Now
2. D Magazine 2023 · Best Fusion in a Wrap: Phorrito · Best of Big D
3. Dallas Observer 2024 · Best Fusion Food · Best of Dallas

1. Dallas Observer 2025 · Best Cafe · Best of Dallas
2. Eater The 15 Coolest Coffee Shops in Dallas

1. Dallas Observer 2023 · Best Restaurant With No Extra Fees · Best of Dallas
2. Dallas Observer Classic Dallas Restaurants · The Top 50 Restaurants in Dallas Right Now
3. D Magazine 2023 · Best Place to Celebrate an Anniversary · Best of Big D

A former mid-century motel across from Southern Methodist University, Graduate by Hilton Dallas kept the bones and added a design-savvy refresh that fits more naturally in a coastal boutique than a Dallas zip code. The rooms are clean and modernist, the personality is intact, and the guests skew younger and lighter on luggage than the grand Texan hotel lobby down the road. The Michelin Guide lists it among its selected hotels.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Dallas Observer Neighborhood Staples and Gems · The Top 50 Restaurants in Dallas Right Now
2. Dallas Observer 2024 · Best Mediterranean · Best of Dallas
3. D Magazine 2024 · Best Former Mayor's House · Best of Big D

1. D Magazine #29 · The 50 Best Restaurants
2. Dallas Observer 2023 · Best Pizza · Best of Dallas

An upscale steakhouse on the seventh floor of a hotel that bills itself as Swiss hospitality in Texas, which tells you something about the room before you even sit down. The draw is the house Akaushi beef, raised by the team's own breeding program just north of the Red River, and it shows up across a menu built around the classics. White-jacketed service, a clubby feel, and a cocktail list you'll need before deciding.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Dallas Observer 2025 · Best Steakhouse · Best of Dallas

Black-and-white floors and a curved bar overlooking an open kitchen set the mood at this Oak Lawn trattoria. Homemade pasta is the point, from spaghetti with meatballs to lasagna Bolognese, backed by an all-Italian wine list. The room is bright and lively, the kind of neighborhood spot where the menu reads short because the kitchen means it. A Michelin Selected Restaurant.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The menu has exactly one protein, and the place is named after it. This casual taqueria built its following on birria, the slow-braised beef that started on a food truck before the team landed a brick-and-mortar spot on Rosedale. Tacos, quesatacos, flautas, tortas, burritos, and quesadillas are all on offer, but it's all birria all the time, served to a lunch crowd that already knows what it's ordering.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Dallas Observer 2024 · Best Baristas · Best of Dallas
2. Eater The 15 Coolest Coffee Shops in Dallas

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. D Magazine 2025 · Best Day-to-Night Combo · Best of Big D
2. Eater The 15 Coolest Coffee Shops in Dallas

1. Dallas Observer 2024 · Best Place to Have Coffee and Not Work · Best of Dallas
2. Eater The 15 Coolest Coffee Shops in Dallas

Wood floors, marble-topped tables, round-backed chairs: Mercat Bistro commits to the French bistro formula without a trace of irony. Escargots in parsley butter, French onion soup, moules frites, a croque monsieur at lunch. Nothing on the menu is surprising, and that's entirely the point. Business lunchers and neighborhood regulars share the room, and the service handles both without fuss. Grab a seat near the open kitchen if you want a little more noise with your classics.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Perched high inside The National, this Italian fine-dining room looks out over Dallas in a way that makes everyone feel like they're closing a deal. The menu runs handmade pasta, wood-fired meats, and premium seafood, with a wine list broad enough to keep the table arguing pleasantly. Dress up, bring an occasion if you don't already have one, and let the room do the rest.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Wagyu meatloaf and croissant bread pudding sit on the same menu, which tells you everything about how Stock & Barrel operates. It's a casual American restaurant in the Bishop Arts neighborhood, with an open kitchen, a convivial bar counter, and booths that fill fast with locals who clearly have a standing reservation in their hearts. The kitchen leans into Texas comfort food, then nudges it somewhere unexpected.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The parking lot is gone, replaced by outdoor lounge space, which tells you everything about how Valencia Hotel Group rethought the classic mid-century courtyard motel. This boutique hotel in the Dallas suburb of Irving keeps the bones and swaps the rest for contemporary rooms with high-end details. Two Mules Cantina handles Tex-Mex, a beer garden runs live music on weekends, and the Salt Tequila Bar is exactly what it sounds like.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The refurbished 1961 palm tree roadside sign out front tells you everything about what this boutique hotel is trying to do: resurrect a classic Texas motor court without the questionable plumbing. Car-seat upholstery, burlwood headboards, and headlamp-shaped fixtures carry the automotive theme through all 143 rooms. A restaurant, a social club, and a rooftop bar mean you can stay in all night, and AT&T Stadium is minutes away when you can't.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Dallas Observer 2024 · Best Specialty Lattes · Best of Dallas
2. Eater The 15 Coolest Coffee Shops in Dallas

1. D Magazine 2024 · Best Tex-Mex · Best of Big D
2. Eater Frozen Margarita · 14 Iconic Dallas Dishes Locals and Tourists Must Try

1. Texas Monthly Honorable Mentions · Texas’s Best New Restaurants
2. D Magazine The Best New Restaurants in Dallas

1. Dallas Observer 2023 · Best Chocolate Chip Cookies · Best of Dallas
2. Eater The 15 Coolest Coffee Shops in Dallas

1. Texas Monthly #9 · Texas’s Best New Restaurants

1. Texas Monthly #7 · The 50 Best BBQ Joints in Texas

1. Texas Monthly Dishes We Wanted Seconds Of: Pan de Elote · The Best Things in Texas

1. D Magazine 2023 · Best Jazz Series · Best of Big D
2. Eater The 15 Coolest Coffee Shops in Dallas

1. Texas Monthly The 50 Best BBQ Joints in Texas

1. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Texas · Anais Paniagua and Iris Rojas

1. Texas Monthly The 50 Best BBQ Joints in Texas

1. D Magazine #25 · The 50 Best Restaurants
2. D Magazine 2025 · Best Pizza · Best of Big D
3. D Magazine 2024 · Best Sandwich: The Super Jeff · Best of Big D

1. D Magazine #13 · The 50 Best Restaurants
2. D Magazine 2024 · Best Tacos · Best of Big D
3. D Magazine 2023 · Best Vegetarian-Friendly · Best of Big D

1. Texas Monthly The 50 Best BBQ Joints in Texas

1. D Magazine #5 · The 50 Best Restaurants

1. Texas Monthly The 50 Best BBQ Joints in Texas

1. Texas Monthly The 50 Best BBQ Joints in Texas

1. Eater The 38 Essential Dallas Restaurants

1. D Magazine #48 · The 50 Best Restaurants

1. D Magazine #34 · The 50 Best Restaurants

1. D Magazine #47 · The 50 Best Restaurants

1. Eater The 38 Essential Dallas Restaurants

1. Dallas Observer Classic Dallas Restaurants · The Top 50 Restaurants in Dallas Right Now

1. Dallas Observer 2023 · Best Restaurant with a Mission · Best of Dallas
2. Dallas Observer Classic Dallas Restaurants · The Top 50 Restaurants in Dallas Right Now

1. Dallas Observer Neighborhood Staples and Gems · The Top 50 Restaurants in Dallas Right Now
2. Dallas Observer 2025 · Best Philly Cheesesteak · Best of Dallas

Double D's is a wood-paneled cocktail bar that looks like a 1970s basement, and it behaves like two different bars depending on the hour. Around six it's draft Palomas and whiskey highballs, handy for a drink before dinner next door. By ten there's a line outside, a DJ working through hip-hop and R&B, and someone ordering a Razzle Dazzle shot to get the dancing started.

1. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Dallas

1. Dallas Observer 2025 · Best New Restaurant · Best of Dallas
2. Dallas Observer Splurge Worthy Spots · The Top 50 Restaurants in Dallas Right Now

1. Dallas Observer New Restaurants on the Observers’ Top 50 · The Top 50 Restaurants in Dallas Right Now

1. Eater The 38 Essential Dallas Restaurants

1. D Magazine #39 · The 50 Best Restaurants
2. D Magazine 2024 · Best Chinese · Best of Big D

1. Dallas Observer Classic Dallas Restaurants · The Top 50 Restaurants in Dallas Right Now
2. Dallas Observer 2024 · Best Chicken-Fried Steak · Best of Dallas

1. Dallas Observer Classic Dallas Restaurants · The Top 50 Restaurants in Dallas Right Now

Kilmac's is a neighborhood pub in Oakcliff, with dark wood, properly poured Guinness, and the same owners as Old Monk, so it knows its way around a bar stool. The cocktail list goes past what the setting suggests, including a freezer martini and a toasted coconut daiquiri. Thin, New York-style pizzas show up too, and they taste better on the big back patio, where you can sprawl out like the weather owes you. The Infatuation has it on its Dallas bars list.

1. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Dallas

1. Dallas Observer Neighborhood Staples and Gems · The Top 50 Restaurants in Dallas Right Now
2. Dallas Observer 2024 · Best Oxtail · Best of Dallas

Las Almas Rotas is a Dallas agave bar that stocks small-batch mezcal, bacanora, and raicilla instead of celebrity tequila, which means the flights can include pechuga mezcal, distilled with raw poultry, and bottles that fit no known category. It was a James Beard Outstanding Bar Program semifinalist. Margaritas and palomas let the spirits do the talking, and carne asada tacos and pozole rojo keep the evening from getting too educational.

1. D Magazine 2023 · Best Agave Bar · Best of Big D
2. D Magazine 2025 · Best Agave Bar · Best of Big D
3. D Magazine 2024 · Best Agave Bar · Best of Big D

1. Eater The 38 Essential Dallas Restaurants

1. Eater The 38 Essential Dallas Restaurants

1. Dallas Observer New Restaurants on the Observers’ Top 50 · The Top 50 Restaurants in Dallas Right Now

1. Dallas Observer New Restaurants on the Observers’ Top 50 · The Top 50 Restaurants in Dallas Right Now

1. Houstonia The Official 50 Hottest Bars in Houston

1. Dallas Observer Classic Dallas Restaurants · The Top 50 Restaurants in Dallas Right Now

1. Eater The 38 Essential Dallas Restaurants

1. D Magazine #32 · The 50 Best Restaurants
2. D Magazine 2023 · Best Vietnamese · Best of Big D

1. Dallas Observer New Restaurants on the Observers’ Top 50 · The Top 50 Restaurants in Dallas Right Now
2. Dallas Observer 2025 · Best Carnitas · Best of Dallas

Shyboy is an underground Downtown bar where the soft-serve machine shares the building with serious DJ talent. Cocktails run to fizzy Japanese highballs and lychee sours, and the main room is big enough to dance and still find a table. The real draw is the Blue Room, a lounge behind a vault door with couches and a sound system that makes listening sessions feel like a small religious experience. Tickets are cheap, so dress for dancing.

1. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Dallas

1. Dallas Observer Neighborhood Staples and Gems · The Top 50 Restaurants in Dallas Right Now
2. Dallas Observer 2024 · Best State Fair Hack · Best of Dallas

1. D Magazine #45 · The 50 Best Restaurants

Sylvestro is a small Italian-leaning wine bar that shares a wall with its sister restaurant, Urbano Cafe, which makes it the easy answer to the question of where to take a date after dinner. The pastas come out of the same kitchen if you'd rather eat here, and the wine list leans Italian. The digestivo shelf is the real draw, deep enough to include a Japanese fernet, so you can digest in several languages.

1. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Dallas

1. Dallas Observer 2025 · Best Restaurant for a Special Occasion · Best of Dallas
2. Dallas Observer Splurge Worthy Spots · The Top 50 Restaurants in Dallas Right Now

1. D Magazine #37 · The 50 Best Restaurants

1. Eater The 38 Essential Dallas Restaurants

1. Eater The 38 Essential Dallas Restaurants

1. Eater The 38 Essential Dallas Restaurants

1. D Magazine #41 · The 50 Best Restaurants

1. D Magazine #29 · The 50 Best Restaurants

The walls at this Deep Ellum dive bar are covered floor to ceiling in years of pen-and-marker graffiti, and the house policy is to add your own. Adair's Saloon runs on outlaw country and live music most nights, with the honky-tonk crowd and the boot-scooters sharing space without much negotiation. The kitchen stays open until nearly two in the morning, which is exactly when a bar burger tastes best.

1. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide

1. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide

The Venn diagram of bar and restaurant has Angry Dog planted right in the overlap, and nobody seems to mind. Cold beer, a game on, chili cheese dogs, burgers, and salads that have no business being this good for a place that smells like fried onions. Close enough to the American Airlines Center and Deep Ellum that it fills up fast on event nights, but regular enough that it works on a Tuesday with nothing going on.

1. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide
2. Dallas Observer 2025 · Best Hot Dog · Best of Dallas

The bookshelf at the back of this Bishop Arts cocktail bar is not for reading. Pull it open and you'll find a hidden back room that rotates global themes, which tracks for a place called Atlas. Out front, Aperol spritzes share the bar with Lone Stars, and the crowd runs from locals to tourists to first dates doing their nervous best. The pho, from a co-owner's family recipe, is a legitimately strange and welcome thing to order at midnight.

1. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide

Ranch Water on tap sets the tone at this sprawling Maple Avenue sports bar. TVs cover every wall, there's a game room in the back for claw machines and pop-a-shot, and the patio handles overflow when a big game draws a crowd. College football dominates, though Love Island holds its own on the schedule. The kitchen turns out salads that have no business being as good as they are, plus flatbreads solid enough to keep you from just drinking through the evening.

1. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide

Oak Cliff locals have been calling it "Barb's" for decades, which tells you everything about what kind of place this is. A low-key dive bar with a retro-cool vibe, it runs karaoke on Thursdays and Sundays and burlesque on the third Wednesday of every month, so there's always a reason the room is full. Between sets, the jukebox swings from disco to hip-hop without apology. Your bartender probably drinks here on their nights off.

1. D Magazine 2025 · Best Hole-in-the-Wall Gay Bar · Best of Big D
2. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide

The Centipede cabinet by the door tells you everything: this is a bar-arcade where a round of drinks and a Street Fighter grudge match are basically the same errand. Twenty-four draft beers keep the tokens flowing, and the front patio fits a crowd large enough for giant Jenga, which is either a selling point or a warning depending on your Friday night. The vibe hovers somewhere between dive bar and Chuck E. Cheese, and nobody here seems bothered by that.

1. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide

There's no sign in the dim Preston Tower corridor that leads here, which is either a design choice or a filter for the impatient. Bernie's is a cocktail bar with art deco bones, a playlist running Quincy Jones and Stevie Nicks, and drinks poured by bartenders who treat a proper old fashioned as a matter of professional pride. The phone doesn't eat first at the well-dressed bar, which suits the regulars just fine.

1. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide

The whole room is dressed as a vintage luxury train car, TVs where the windows would be, all looping passing landscapes in sync. It's a cocktail bar, a narrow one, with a chandelier whose crystals would really benefit from something rumbling the floorboards. The drinks lean into the theme, shifting and a little secretive, the kind you order twice without quite knowing why. The bathrooms apparently have their own story, though you'll have to go find out.

1. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide

The fried chicken gets a 24-hour brine before it hits the fryer, which tells you something about the kitchen's priorities at this Deep Ellum cocktail bar. Six house cocktails are priced like they want you to order a second round, and the vibe is the kind of loose, unhurried thing that feels increasingly rare on Commerce Street. The Dallas Observer handed it Best Fried Chicken in 2024, so the secret is somewhat out, but the room still has its own quiet momentum.

1. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide
2. Dallas Observer 2024 · Best Fried Chicken · Best of Dallas
3. Dallas Observer 2025 · Best Late-Night Grub · Best of Dallas