Dallas’ Avanti Italian settles into City Place Fort Worth

The exact spot “where the West begins” must have moved.

There is no other way to explain Avanti, a sleek Euro-Dallas restaurant on Throckmorton Street in the City Place tower west of Sundance Square.

At lunch, servers glide beneath chandeliers to the tempo of what sounds like the Dave Matthews Band.

Diners choose from the same menu as Avanti’s Uptown Dallas location, with entrees such as beef bourguignon or gnocchi pizzaiola and a tiramisu dessert.

But the lunch prices are very Fort Worth: $11-$14, plus a choice of Greek or Caesar side salads for $2.

Blackened salmon is a near-ubiquitous menu item these days, and Avanti serves it on a bed of grilled romaine lettuce with a berry balsamic.

The lunch salad choices also include a shrimp-and-chicken “salad gourmandi” with hearts of palm ($12) and a lump-crab salad with pear and candied pecans ($12).

The dinner menu (about $15-$35) adds more elaborate entrees such as bone-in veal Milanese, a rib-eye, crabmeat-crusted sea bass and tenderloin beef “tournedos Avanti” with mushrooms, spinach and Gorgonzola.

The Fort Worth restaurant also offers flatbreads and more small plates, owner Amin Malek said.

“We have so many clients who come from Fort Worth to the Dallas location — we have tried to create the same atmosphere,” he said.

The setting is fine-dining Italian, with a pleasant patio on the walkway from West Second Street.

(Too bad a Hooters will open next door.)

Avanti is open weekdays only for lunch and closes in midafternoon. It opens at 5 nightly and serves until 11 p.m. weekends, which means Avanti can be an after-show dinner choice when it’s too late for Taverna.

The address is 150 Throckmorton St., at the west end of Second Street connected by skybridge to the Renaissance Worthington. 817-991-6455; avantirestaurants.com/fort-worth.

Rendon en Fuego

More soon on this, but the much-missed Fuego Burger is back.

Former Salsa Fuego owner Carlos Rodriguez has taken over a small gas-station convenience store in Rendon. It’s the home of his new 5ive Spice Kitchen.

The 5ive Spice menu looks familar: the Fuego Burger, bacon-mushroom or blue cheese burgers, chicken sandwiches and a gyro, ranging from about $5.50 to $10.

The menu also includes Tex-Mex tacos, quesadillas and breakfast tacos at 5595 Farm Road 1187, 817-879-9495.

Eyes on the pies

Colleyville’s Buttermilk Sky Pie Shop is open. It’s the first Texas franchise for a Knoxville, Tenn., pie-and-ice-cream favorite.

The “classic” pies include “I-40” chocolate-coconut, pecan, buttermilk and coconut cream. Buttermilk Sky is also making fresh strawberry pie as a seasonal favorite.

The mini pies cost less than $5, or $16 for a sampler box of four mini pies.

Buttermilk Sky opens at 8:30 a.m. weekdays and Saturdays and stays open until 8 p.m. weeknights, 9 weekends; 4712 Colleyville Blvd., 817-581-7437, buttermilkskypie.com.

This story was originally published April 12, 2016 at 10:41 AM with the headline "Dallas’ Avanti Italian settles into City Place Fort Worth."