Houstonia Magazine
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By Amanda Albee Published in the Summer 2025 issue of Houstonia Magazine
Image: CK Foto/Shutterstock.com
Wealthy housewives aside, it seems like few people enjoy living in Dallas. Transplants who move for jobs or quasi-affordable housing rapidly snap from enthrallment to entrapment, while the rest of the locals steel themselves with sportsball, revolving-door restaurants, and nonstop air-conditioning. During my 25 years in the city, I, too, have been in the Dallas Haters’ Club. After a couple stints of overseas living, though, I came to understand D-Town actually does have a bright side. Our diversity and grunge-to-luxe range are some obvious perks. I occasionally don my rose-colored sunglasses to blur the corporate blandness, scalding summertime heat, and pervasive superficiality, but really, I do like Dallas. Promise.
Typically, visitors already have a steakhouse or shopping mall in mind when passing through Texas’s third-largest city, so this guide won’t cover the obvious. Instead, these recommendations are focused on the unique gems I cherish about the Big D that even Houstonians can enjoy.
Dallas boasts a rich history in live theater and has grown into the nation’s third-largest box office market. It’s come a long way since its first venue, Washington Theatre, opened in 1912 (and has since been demolished). Additionally, Frank Lloyd Wright’s only theater, the Kalita Humphreys, is located here, although it doesn’t have a year-round season. For a live show, head to Theatre Three, another historic group and one of the first to desegregate. It’s now in a fresh building in the Quad, in Dallas’s Uptown district.
Image: courtesy the wild detectives/joseph haubert
Moving beyond our well-known shopping plazas and malls, Dallas is the spot for banned-book shopping—even cooler when it’s a used banned book. Find them in abundance, along with new titles, at Half Price Books’ flagship store on Northwest Highway. The chain that’s spread to 19 states is actually very Dallas. CEO Sharon Anderson Wright’s mother started it with a business partner from a converted laundromat in 1972. To boot, La Casita Bakeshop recently moved into the warehouse’s corner café, with coffee, pastries, and full-service breakfast by day, and tiki cocktails, lumpia, and kimchi carbonara at night.
As the existence of indie bookstores plummets alongside literacy rates, the Wild Detectives in the Bishop Arts District is standing up to the test of screen time. (It’s also Houstonia editors’ go-to stop in town on a road trip from Houston to the Panhandle.) Find a bohemian crowd and titles that include children’s books, poetry, Spanish translations, and books made famous by “banvertising.” Most summers bring literary festivals, backyard concerts, and Afro perreo dance parties. Oh, and there’s a bar.
For thrifting with potential for celebrity sightings, Dolly Python is a vintage emporium of men’s and women’s clothing, with threads dating back to the 1940s. Jon Hamm, Bella Hadid, Leon Bridges, Lana del Rey, and Pete Davidson are just a few stars who’ve sauntered its aisles of general kitsch that includes Garfield phones, crystal balls, and Playboy magazines of yore.
Image: courtesy kathy tran
The best part of Dallas is our world-class restaurants and bars—if you know where to look.
Beginning with our raunchily delightful dives: The Goat and Lee Harvey’s have for decades welcomed motley crowds, gray-bearded bands, and seekers of cheap drinks. The Goat passes the true dive litmus test by opening at 7am most days. Blues bands perform Thursday through Saturday nights, as baby-faced Southern Methodist University students groove next to leather-clad boomers.
Over in the Cedars area, Lee Harvey’s owner Seth Smith—a former photographer, drummer, and bull rider—attracts crowds as colorful as his résumé with (non-smash) burgers, killer onion rings, and $6–7 wells. Much of the place is held together with duct tape, but a newer venue across the street, Lee Harvey’s Dive-In, has a swimming pool, cabanas, and swimsuit competitions.
Before agave bars became all the rage, we had La Viuda Negra, next to sister taqueria El Come Taco, as well as Ayahuasca Cantina, in the back of Xamán Café. Both bars boast a long list of mezcals and fermented pre-Hispanic curados that start with pulque from Mexico. Both shake up cocktails with Abasolo corn whisky, charanda (a sugarcane spirit similar to rum) from Michoacán, and Condesa Gin with Mexican botanicals.
The least-talked-about part of Dallas’s food scene is our superior Japanese restaurants. For yakitori-based omakase from a forerunner who established the city as a hotbed for Japanese cuisine, try Masayuki “Masa” Otaka’s Mābo, one of the country’s best new restaurants, according to the James Beard Foundation; Tatsu Dallas, our only Michelin-starred restaurant; or Domodomo Kō, one of the city’s newest hot spots for ambitious Korean-Japanese fare by chef-owner Brian Kim.
Image: courtesy casa duro
Breakfast is an event here, too. Experience bagel phenomena at Starship Bagel’s two Dallas-area locations. For the summer, baker Oren Salomon will bring back the caprese bagel, with basil schmear, locally grown tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella. Matt Balke’s blue corn butterscotch pancakes with cajeta have prompted an extremely passionate fan club on weekends at Encina. In Farmers Branch at Radici, celebrity chef Tiffany Derry goes Italian with cream-filled bomboloni, fruit pizza, and fried chicken cutlets with Italian sausage gravy.
For handhelds, head to Dallas’s original Italian import market, Jimmy’s Food Store, where for nearly 40 years, deli manager Jeff White has been making muffulettas and hot meatball-and-Italian sausage sandwiches. Or try La Bodega’s hefty mouthfuls, which start with Empire Bakery’s ciabatta, such as the pulled rotisserie chicken with goat cheese, roasted garlic, and caramelized onions, and the option to add crispy chicken skin.
With approximately 41,000 Korean Americans calling the city home, Dallas also boasts one of the top Korean food scenes in the country (especially when considered alongside nearby Carrollton, often called “New Koreatown”). Attracting Korean businesses since the mid-1980s, the original Dallas Koreatown, a mile-and-a-half stretch on Royal Lane, is the most recent business district to be officially recognized by the state. One of the original restaurants—and most modern after a 2021 reboot—is Koryo Korean BBQ. Barbecue sets named after Korean dynasties are grilled over charcoal and served with a tasty 12-piece banchan set, as well as a lettuce basket for making ssam (lettuce wraps). Premium sojus and à la carte cuts, such as A5 Akaushi Wagyu ribeye, are also available.
For extra-crispy Korean fried chicken, head to No. 1 Plus Chicken, whose original location opened on Royal Lane in 2005. Select your preferred spice level and sauce—like honey garlic or gochujang-based yangyum—then ring the doorbell (it clucks back). Proceed with plastic gloves for a feast that’s best accented with cheesy kimchi fries, hot skillets of cheese corn, or fried rice cakes and cheese. Ashley Park, whose uncle and parents founded the local chain 20 years ago, says Gov. Greg Abbott’s formal designation for the area has renewed hope for increased traffic to a worthwhile restaurant zone.
Image: courtesy casa duro
Setting up camp near top attractions can be tricky here, but in the past few years, two hotels have opened in the thick of Dallas lights and action. Both earned Michelin Keys in the tire company’s first guide to Texas.
Casa Duro consists of three second-story apartments above Duro Hospitality’s coffee and bottle shop, Café Duro, and Tex-Italian restaurant, Sister, on our historic bar-and-restaurant strip, Lower Greenville. Residential furnishings with classical panache include full kitchens, dream beds, and Juliet balconies for observing the groundlings below.
For sleeps amid big city lights with turndown service, Hôtel Swexan stands as the swanky crown jewel of the Harwood District. Alongside its 134 boutique rooms are multiple bars and restaurants, a rooftop pool with cabanas, as well as eight suites—two with bathrooms featuring personal saunas.
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