Burgers, steaks and pecan pie. Take a peek inside the new Stockyards hotel restaurant
Two warnings about 97 West Kitchen & Bar:
▪ Don’t go right now. Give new restaurants a couple of weeks to settle down, and;
▪ Don’t expect too much too soon.
The reliable restaurants in the Stockyards are still the places like Horseshoe Hill, Lonesome Dove and Provender Hall, where chefs have elevated simple dishes such as chicken-fried steak, chili con carne and grilled trout with hoppin’ john.
The new 97 West is the dining room in the sharp Hotel Drover, 200 Mule Alley Drive. It’s a spectacle of New West dining, the kind of place tourists and Texans will want to put away some chicken-fried oysters or toss back a few shots.
Just don’t expect everything to be perfect yet. Give it time.
Much-traveled chef Grant Morgan has the ideal resume for the job. He cooked at the prestigious James Beard House in New York when he was chef at Dragonfly in Dallas’ Hotel Zaza, and before that he was chef for the short-lived Bailey’s Prime Plus steakhouses.
Lately, he’s worked as corporate executive chef at Velvet Taco, known for pungent flavors but not for sophistication.
The new 97 West is “nothing like Velvet Taco,” he said with a big grin.
It’s more like his early career stops cooking at luxury hotels in Sedona, Arizona; Vail, Colorado; and Las Vegas.
The Drover is Fort Worth’s new luxury lodging, an Autograph Collection hotel that instantly competes with the Omni Fort Worth, Worthington Renaissance Fort Worth and new hotels in Arlington, Irving, Grapevine and Roanoke.
It anchors the new $175 million Mule Alley shops, with another $300 million in upscale Western shops and dining planned for what used to be old Stockyards horse barns.
Right now, 97 West is open for dinner nightly except Mondays, and also for (pricey) brunch weekends. (No lunch yet.)
The dinner menu is affordable. It ranges from a $15 burger and a $19 rib-eye steak salad to a $125 3-pound wagyu tomahawk steak.
You’ll see plenty of Stockyards tourists dining on queso ($12) and whiskey, or a glass of wine and a Caesar, or Morgan’s signature dinner of antelope with goat cheese grits ($36).
But cowboys will ultimately judge the restaurant by one dish: Chicken-fried steak.
The 97 West version starts with silky-soft Akaushi New York strip steak, sliced thin and floured lightly like in West Texas.
“The breading is the key,” Morgan said.
“We flour the steaks and keep pressing, so there’s a good adhesive between the meat and bread. Nobody likes a chicken-fried steak with too much breading.”
The steak is lighter than most chicken-frieds — but then comes the cream gravy, made from house-made smoked sausage.
The price is $22, about the same as other high-end chicken-fried steaks but not as bulky.
The 97 West dessert menu includes a choice of five sweets including Texas pecan pie with bourbon-vanilla ice cream, tres leches cake and a bread pudding with cajeta (all $12).
An Easter brunch is planned, adding dishes such as shrimp-and-grits, Morgan said.
The Drover is at the south end of Mule Alley, across Marine Creek from Lonesome Dove about two blocks south of East Exchange Avenue.
Since Exchange is busy, the best entrance is the driveway on the south side of the hotel off N.E. 23rd Street near Packers Avenue.
Watch for lunch and weekday breakfast service soon; 682-255-6497, hoteldrover.com.
This story was originally published March 29, 2021 at 5:45 AM.
