CultureMap Dallas

Editor's note: A lot happened this week, so here's your chance to get caught up. Read on for the week's most popular headlines. 1. The 10 best neighborhood restaurants in Dallas are truly here to serve. For many diners, the restaurant that means the most is their neighborhood restaurant — the one that's nearby, that they frequent regularly, the one that's almost an extension of their own home. For those reasons and more, we include neighborhood restaurants as one of the categories in our annual CultureMap Tastemaker Awards, celebrating the best in Dallas food and drink. Here are the 10 nominees for Best Neighborhood Restaurant.

A key part of our annual CultureMap Tastemaker Awards, celebrating the best in Dallas food and drink, is a category we call the wild card, which changes from year to year, depending on what culinary trends have emerged. Prior wild cards have included cuisines such as fried chicken, but for...

As COVID-19 rushes back for its great summer encore among (mainly) the unvaccinated in Dallas-Fort Worth, it's bringing with it the dreaded cancellation of fun things, which fans of fun things suffered through in 2020. Hopefully this weekend is not the start of an un-fun trend, but three event cancellations...

Three Italian gents have come together to open an Italian restaurant in downtown Dallas: Called La Stella Italian Verace, it'll open at 2330 Flora St. #150, in the space better known as the former Flora Street Cafe. La Stella is from three guys with wonderfully vowel-rich names: Giuseppe "JP" Piccinini,...

In this week's roundup of Dallas and Texas news, Texas seems hellbent on becoming a super-spreader state. Volunteers are going door-to-door to try and increase vaccinations. AT&T says one thing and does another. The post office is raising rates. And the convention center needs an intervention. Here's what happened in...

No matter how you slice it, Austin reigns as the state’s biggest comeback story when it comes to recovering jobs lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, but Dallas is not far behind. New data from the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce shows the Austin metro area has regained 96 percent of...

A Dallas restaurant group has been sued for discrimination by a former manager. A lawsuit was filed on July 19 against Vandelay Hospitality Group, which owns East Hampton Sandwich Company, Hudson House, Brentwood, and Drake's Hollywood, by Glenn Govias, a former manager at Drake's Hollywood, alleging widespread discriminatory practices. Filed...

Gymnastics fans can Yurchenko double pike for joy: The Tokyo Olympic Games finally have landed. The first event — Men's Qualifying — begins mere hours after Opening Ceremony on Friday, July 23. Then the women — starring G.O.A.T. Simone Biles, her Texas training mate Jordan Chiles, and the rest of top-ranked Team USA — get started on their quest for gold.

The Dallas Morning News has a new executive editor: Katrice Hardy, replacing Mike Wilson, who resigned in 2020. Hardy was most recently at the Indianapolis Star, where she'd been editor for about a year; she also served as Gannett's regional editor for the Midwest, overseeing newsrooms throughout Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky.

Hey, Dallas, if this killjoy of a pandemic has left you desperate to get yer ya-ya's out, then wild horses couldn't drag you away from what promises to be the most legendary show to filter through town this fall. Immortal rock icons The Rolling Stones will take shelter at the...

A Dallas BBQ restaurant has called it quits after five years: Lakewood Smokehouse, which opened in Lakewood in 2016 has closed for good, as of July 22. The restaurant shared the news on Facebook, citing COVID-19 and other factors. "It was with a heavy heart that we are announcing that...

There are some movie stars whose time at the top is seemingly never-ending, but for the majority of actors, being an A-list celebrity lasts for a relatively short period of time. Val Kilmer was as big a star as there was in the 1980s and ‘90s, headlining movies like Top Gun, The Doors, Tombstone, and Batman Forever. But, even though he’s continued to work steadily, his last film of note was 2005’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a very fallow period for a man who’s still only 61 years old.

Arlington will be the place to be this weekend, as it will play host to both a huge concert — the most significant one since the beginning of the pandemic — and two big soccer matches. Other choices in the Dallas area will include new theater productions, a popular violinist, two well-known comedians, and the closing of a major art exhibition.

An acclaimed Dallas pizza restaurant is spinning off a new concept that will make it faster and easier to get your artisan pie. Called PT Neighborhood Pizzeria, it's a sibling to Pie Tap, the small pizzeria chain founded by veteran restaurateur Rich Hicks, but with an innovative approach to service that takes fast-casual to the next level.

Dallas' Design District is in line to get a cool new neighborhood bar from a team with lots of experience: It's called Double D's — short for "Design District," what were you thinking? — and it's from This and That Hospitality, whose brimming portfolio of bars includes High Fives, The Whip, Tiny Victories, Alice, Dibs on Victory, and Ferris Wheelers.

Ahoy, sailors, water folk, and history buffs with Galveston vacation homes: A historical foundation is mustering crew for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sail history. Guests are now invited to board Elissa, Galveston’s beloved, 19th-century cargo ship (and The Official Tall Ship of Texas) for sailing lessons on the floating icon, dubbed Elissa Sail Training, led by the Galveston Historical Foundation.

Uber and Costco have entered a new partnership in which Uber will deliver Costco merchandise, and the first place it's being offered is — ta-da — Texas. According to a release, the two companies have entered a delivery pilot program with 25 locations across the state, where Costco members can theoretically get their Costco goods delivered within hours, if not minutes, with Uber and Uber Eats.

We begin with the elephant in the room: WaterTower Theatre has been embroiled in a heated discussion regarding its casting for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. The cast and artistic team are all white or white-passing, and there has been outrage from the Dallas-Fort Worth theater...

Frontier Airlines, noted for its low-cost no-frills fares, had added a slew of new nonstop routes in three cities, including Dallas-Fort Worth. According to a release, the airline is beefing up its presence in three markets: Dallas, Atlanta, and Las Vegas, with 21 new nonstop routes total. That includes seven new routes at DFW Airport.

Bars are half the story of the food & beverage industry, which we'll celebrate via our annual CultureMap Tastemaker Awards, celebrating the best in Dallas food and drink. In our editorial series, we're spotlighting nominees in every category: best neighborhood restaurants, best rising star chefs, best bartenders, and best restaurants — voted on by a panel of judges, consisting of former CultureMap Tastemaker Award winners and local F&B experts, who helped narrow down the final list to 10 finalists.