A patio restaurant from Mexico, a steakhouse and more opening in Fort Worth in 2023
Food costs are high.
Restaurant workers are scarce.
Yet Fort Worth is in line for as many as 50 new restaurants in 2023, including a stunning second location for the best rooftop destination in the world and a prime steakhouse from a celebrity chef.
New restaurants will open in booming Mule Alley and the Fort Worth Stockyards, of course, along with potential revamped restaurants from new owners connected with TV’s “Yellowstone” and “1883.”
But new dining also will come at high-end hotels downtown and along Camp Bowie Boulevard, and two of the city’s best chefs will add new concepts.
Also, both the Dallas-based Hudson House and Truck Yard restaurants will open their first Fort Worth locations.
There’s room for new restaurants like Quince, the rooftop restaurant from Mexico opening on a ground-level riverbank patio along the Trinity Trails, because “we’re doing something that you can’t find here right now,” said Fort Worth investor Brian Sneed.
“We’re doing something something that is missing. That’s the key — you can’t just be like all the other restaurants,” he said.
Here’s a look at Quince and a few of the other new independent restaurants and hotel dining rooms expected to open in 2023:
Quince
The first Quince, named for its address at 15 Cuna de Allende in the mountain vacation city of San Miguel de Allende, is ranked the world’s top rooftop destination.
The second Quince isn’t on a rooftop. But Sneed says the patio location, 1701 River Run in the WestBend shopping center, will be just as striking.
The high-design restaurant has decor, furnishings and carvings from Mexico and Brazil. There are style elements from Sneed’s hometown of New Orleans. And there’s the sprawling patio along the Clear Fork of the Trinity River.
Quince’s Asian and global-contemporary menu has been refined and improved since the first location opened in 2016. (A third location is already planned on Austin’s Lake Austin Boulevard.)
Chef Gonzalo Martínez was in the kitchen at the old Rainbow Room in New York City. His menu highlights ceviches, sashimi and nigiri along with seafood, beef and lamb entrees and an extensive bakery with 20 house-made desserts.
The former taco bar and restaurant next door to HG Sply Co. and Ascension Coffee has been redesigned to showcase the river.
It’s expected to open in February; quincerooftop.com.
Cowboy Prime, Cafe Margot, F1 Smokehouse
Less is known about Cowboy Prime, 128 East Exchange Ave., the new Stockyards steakhouse that will become the new home of TV chef Graham Elliot (“Master Chef,” “The Great American Recipe”).
But the first Cowboy Prime is now open in Midland. It’s one of many new projects by prolific Texas restaurateur Felipe Armenta.
The menu highlights prime steaks, obviously. But there’s also a wide selection of salmon, scallops and chicken, and less expensive short-rib stroganoff, steak-and-frites and burgers.
Honestly, Cowboy Prime might not open until 2024.
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Armenta and Elliot are much closer to opening two other new restaurants: F1 Smokehouse, a barbecue restaurant and bar at 517 University Drive, and Cafe Margot, a French bistro at 3150 S. Hulen St.
F1 Smokehouse will open first. It serves the updated barbecue menu from Armenta’s barbecue truck at Clearfork, including brisket, ribs, turkey and carnitas but with updated side dishes such as peanut slaw and kale salad along with beans and potato salad.
Armenta is the restaurateur behind Pacific Table, Maria’s Mexican Kitchen, Cork & Pig Tavern, The Tavern Bar & Grill, Press Cafe and Towne Grill.
61 Osteria
The team behind Grace and Little Red Wasp is close to opening a new Italian restaurant in the First on 7th tower, 500 W. Seventh St.
Chef Blaine Staniford and operator Adam Jones are opening 61 Osteria, a midcentury modern Italian lunch, brunch and dinner restaurant, in the 1961-vintage former bank tower (thus the “61”).
It’s on the west side of downtown, facing Burnett Park and the “Man With Briefcase” sculpture by Jonathan Borofsky.
Staniford has been the chef for 14 years at Grace, the city’s leading fine-dining restaurant, and the more casual Little Red Wasp.
The restaurant will feature Texas cheeses and house-made pastas made from Texas-milled grains, according to a press release.
Jones first came to Fort Worth in the 1980s as an Italian restaurant operator at Prego in Sundance Square before a long stint at Del Frisco’s.
61 Osteria is already booking reservations through Little Red Wasp, 817-877-3111; 61osteria.com.
Walloon’s
Chef Marcus Paslay’s newest restaurant, Walloon’s, is an oyster bar and seafood restaurant opening at 701 W. Magnolia Ave, on the Near Southside across from Paris Coffee Shop.
A Walloon (pronounced “wah-lone”) is a person from Wallonia, a region in Belgium. But the theme also refers to Walloon Lake in Michigan, author Ernest Hemingway’s visits to Walloon Lake off Lake Michigan.
Paslay, the chef behind Clay Pigeon, Piattello Italian Kitchen and Provender Hall, is promising mussels, oysters, steak frites and a menu with New Orleans and South Carolina Lowcountry influences.
Construction is just starting. So watch as work begins on The 701, a new office-retail complex on that corner.
Maiden: Fine Plants & Spirits
Maiden is Texas’ first vegan fine-dining restaurant, offering an ever-changing chef’s tasting menu from Amy McNutt and the founders of the Spiral Diner vegan cafe.
Maiden is in a park-style setting as an anchor in the PS1200 “public space” retail-apartment project just off Magnolia Avenue near West Oleander Street.
It’s a counterpart to the casual Spiral, now in its 20th year and often listed among the nation’s best vegan restaurants. Maiden has not posted a menu yet, but watch maidenvegan.com.
Dreamboat Donuts and Scoops next door is near opening, featuring soy-based ice creams and gluten-free doughnuts.
Hotels galore
▪ Musume, a flashy Dallas Asian-fusion restaurant, will open early in 2023 inside the new Sandman Signature Fort Worth Downtown Hotel, a 20-story landmark at 810 Houston St.
The Dallas restaurant, 2330 Flora St. in the Arts District, is known for shrimp, sea bass, sushi and calamari.
Musume’s partners also own the ChopShop music venue in Roanoke. But one of the partners, Josh Babb, also oversaw Dallas’ Kenichi restaurant in Victory Park.
The Sandman is expected to open in spring; 682-842-9350, sandmanhotels.com.
▪ The new Crescent-Fort Worth hotel restaurant, 833 Van Cliburn Way in Museum Place, remains a mystery.
Dallas’ legendary chef Dean Fearing was announced as the signature chef for the restaurant, and a rough draft of a menu is posted online featuring snapper, trout, lobster, antelope, pheasant and steaks, with “Dean’s Tortilla Soup.”
But neither Fort Worth-based Crescent Real Estate nor Fearing have returned messages about the project.
It may not open in 2023, but it will be watched and talked about.
▪ The new Auberge Resorts Bowie House Hotel, 3700 Camp Bowie Blvd., is promoted as including a “signature restaurant” to open late in 2023. That’s all we know.
▪ The new Le Meridien hotel, 815 Commerce St., is expected to include a lobby coffee bar and cafe.
Barbecue
▪ Brix Barbecue, opening a dining room at 1012 S. Main St., is a long-awaited restaurant that will replace pitmaster Trevor Sales’ successful South Main Village “Smokestream” trailer.
Brix’s craft barbecue is in a class with nearby Panther City BBQ and Near Southside neighbors Heim Barbecue and Hurtado Barbecue. The current trailer is open Fridays and Saturdays at 218 Bryan Ave., 219-363-6210, brixbarbecue.com.
▪ Also coming in 2023: the restaurant home for Dayne’s Craft Barbecue, already serving out front Fridays through Sundays at 9840 Camp Bowie Blvd. West; 817-913-0986, daynescraftbarbecue.com.
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Popular chains
▪ The big-news opening in the Alliance neighborhood is a Fort Worth location of Truck Yard, a sprawling music and food venue with a food-truck-park theme.
It’s from chef Jason Boso, known for Twisted Root Burger and Second Rodeo Brewing. The first Truck Yard opened in 2013 in Dallas.
The new Truck Yard is expected to open in mid-January at 3101 Prairie Vista Drive, two blocks east of Mi Cocina in Alliance Town Center; truckyardalliance.com.
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▪ Hudson House, an American Classics restaurant with a Hudson River Valley theme, will open in late 2023 or early 2024 at 4600 Dexter Ave. near the corner of Camp Bowie Boulevard and Hulen Street.
Hudson House has thrived in Snider Plaza and other Dallas and Irving locations and recently announced a Southern California location on Sunset Boulevard between West Hollywood and Beverly Hills.
Popular dishes range from a lobster roll, clams and mussels to burgers and weekend brunch; hudsonhousehp.com
(The same company operated the now-closed East Hampton Sandwich in West Bend.)
▪ Portillo’s, the legendary Chicago hot dog and sandwich cafe, is expected to open by summer at 4200 S. Cooper St. in Arlington.
Another location is expected in Fort Worth at 2491 North Tarrant Parkway.
The region’s first Portillo’s was scheduled to open Dec. 30 at 4560 Destination Drive, The Colony; portillos.com.
▪ Pie Tap Pizza Workshop + Bar, 1301 W. Magnolia Ave., is a Dallas-based Design District pizza and rotisserie chicken restaurant known for inexpensive lunches and Tuesday specials.
In Fort Worth, it’ll be known for half-price “meatball Monday” and $12 Tuesday pizza specials and Thursday pasta specials, along with craft cocktails. Pizzas ($16-$18) are simple: Margherita, pepperoni, sausage, a salami-sausage-pepperoni combo, prosciutto, rotisserie chicken-barbecue-bacon, mushroom-bacon or veggie.
Pie Tap currently has four locations in Dallas and Addison; pie-tap.com.
▪ Plank Seafood, 5289 Marathon Ave., is an Omaha-based oyster bar and seafood grill from the owners of Blue Sushi.
Plank, a corporate cousin to Blue Sushi, sevrves snapper ceviche, yellowtail sushi, Thai clam chowder and Asian-inspired dishes, along with its traditional fresh seafood.
The restaurant offers a grilled seafood platter with five shrimp, three scallops, a pound of mussels and 1½ pounds of lobster; plankseafood.com.
▪ The popular northern California-based Black Bear Diner home-cooking-and-pie chain will open early next year at 9501 North Freeway near the Alliance area.
A second location is planned in the 12500 block of South Freeway near Burleson; blackbeardiner.com.
This story was originally published December 28, 2022 at 5:30 AM.
