Eats Beat: A Mercury for Arlington, Dee’s steaks for Fort Worth

Arlington finally has an upscale steakhouse and wine bar.

But Mercury Wine Bar & Grill also fits for a weekday lunch.

It started as a wine bistro, but expanded to a bar and steakhouse serving beef from Allen Brothers in Chicago.

At $20-$30 with potato and asparagus, the steaks are a bargain compared with other prime steakhouses. Diners can add Mercury’s Oscar, dynamite or peppercorn sauces.

Mercury also brings along the affordable Chop House lunch menu, with large salads, hand-battered chicken-fried steaks and a flame-grilled tenderloin burger that challenges Arlington’s best.

Rabii (“Robby”) Moutaouakil promises more fresh-baked desserts like the downtown restaurant, but the opening lineup includes chocolate mousse cake and Key lime pie.

The decor is reminiscent of Arlington’s nicer Italian restaurants, a notch up from competing steakhouses.

Mercury Wine Bar is open for lunch and dinner weekdays, dinner Saturdays.

It’s in a former cooking school and bistro in Brownstone Village, 2410 W. Abram St.; 817-538-5888, mercurywinebargrill.com.

New at the Fest

The second Fort Worth Food & Wine Festival has more of what diners want: brunch, barbecue and dessert.

The festival opens March 26 with a barbecue hoedown at Billy Bob’s Texas, featuring local pitmasters like Billy Woodrich of Billy’s Oak Acres BBQ and state favorites such as Black’s Barbecue of Lockhart and Dallas’ Lockhart Smokehouse.

The event costs $60 and includes a Wade Bowen concert.

A new Rise & Dine event offers brunch tastings from more than 40 local restaurants March 28 in a Renaissance Worthington ballroom. It’s also $60.

And a Desserts After Dark event late Friday showcases the work of nine dessert chefs ranging from American Food + Beverage’s Laurel Wimberg to Melt Ice Creams’ Kari Crowe. It’s a $45 ticket.

Tickets for all four days ( six events) cost $325; fortworthfoodandwinefestival.com.

Dee Lincoln’s steakhouse

News broke at DFW.com deadline that Dee Lincoln will open a prime steakhouse on West Seventh Street, switching from the original concept of an upscale burger grill.

Her Dee Lincoln’s in Uptown closed, and the former Del Frisco’s executive now will focus on bringing the Cultural District an upscale steakhouse at the corner of Seventh and Van Cliburn Way only blocks from the art museums.

In an announcement, she said she wants to “return to my roots and do what I do best ... I am looking forward to delivering prime steaks, superb seafood and Texas hospitality in Cowtown once again.”

Sunday at the Mushroom

Just in time for brunch season, the Wild Mushroom Steak House launches a brunch menu and buffet this week.

More details that didn’t make the midweek Eats Beat column: The $22.50 price includes a choice of entrees, a fruit-and-pastry buffet and a mimosa.

The menu offers eggs and waffles but also a duck-confit omelet, steak and eggs or chicken and waffles.

Book it now

Don’t miss out on booking Easter or Mother’s Day reservations. Del Frisco’s Double Eagle, Grace and more fine-dining restaurants will open for both. Call a favorite, or check www.opentable.com.

This story was originally published March 19, 2015 at 11:40 AM with the headline "Eats Beat: A Mercury for Arlington, Dee’s steaks for Fort Worth."