Eats Beat: Easy tables for Dallas’ Beard Award nominees

Two of our most watched new restaurants in the James Beard Foundation Awards are also two of the most bookable.

San Salvaje, chef Stephan Pyles’ new Latin fusion restaurant in the Dallas Arts District, is one of 25 semifinalists for “best new restaurant.”

The Beard Awards are the industry’s Oscars or Emmys. Texas is part of a Southwest region, and voters often don’t look DFW’s way.

Casa Rubia at Trinity Groves, the new modern-tapas cafe tucked among the trendy shops off Dallas’ Singleton Boulevard — near Sylvan Avenue and west of downtown — was a semifinalist in the best new restaurant category last year, and chef Omar Flores made the semifinals this year in the “best chef: Southwest” category.

Both are wide-open for weekend booking, according to OpenTable.com (www.opentable.com)

(That may be because the names aren’t as distinctive as the restaurants. Both are excellent and well worth a stop on a Dallas trip.)

Other local Beard semifinalists include Pyles, as outstanding chef of his namesake Stephan Pyles; and additional Dallas-based best chef: Southwest semifinalists David Uygur of Lucia and frequent Fort Worth visitors, Matt McCallister of FT33 and John Tesar of Knife.

Wine professional James Tidwell of the Four Seasons Resort and Club in Irving is also a best chef: Southwest semifinalist.

In an unusual pick, celebrity pitmaster Aaron Franklin of Franklin Barbecue in Austin also made the list.

For the entire list, see jamesbeard.org/awards.

Kaufmann honored

Or you don’t have to go to Dallas.

One past Beard Award winner will be serving a special dinner in Fort Worth next week.

But it’s a $250 ticket. Chef Dean Fearing from Fearing’s will make the Cowtown trip again March 4, joining Fort Worth chef Jon Bonnell for a fine-dining event onstage at Bass Hall.

Fearing and Bonnell are serving the Centerstage event, an early and elegant appetizer for the Fort Worth Food + Wine Festival, which is set for March 26-29 this year.

This year’s Centerstage honors beloved Fort Worth chef Walter Kaufmann, a pioneer of continental cuisine as chef at the former Old Swiss House.

Tickets are sold at www.fortworthfoodandwinefestival.com along with less expensive tickets for other festival events.

Kin Kin starts slowly

Kin Kin Urban Thai, the new contemporary Thai grill-and-bar, is now scheduled to open by mid-March, tentatively March 9, at the corner of West Seventh and Foch streets in the West 7th shops.

It’s a new restaurant from Bite City Grill “Chef Eddy” Thretipthuangsin, former chef at Pakpao Thai in Dallas.

A menu was not available early this week; 2801 W. Seventh St., kinkinurbanthai.com.

This story was originally published February 24, 2015 at 9:28 AM with the headline "Eats Beat: Easy tables for Dallas’ Beard Award nominees."