Take a look at Duchess, the new Fort Worth restaurant by TV chef Casey Thompson
TV chef Casey Thompson’s new Fort Worth hotel restaurant is very different from both the restaurant and city she left nearly 15 years ago.
Thompson pitched in to help proven local chef Marcus Kopplin open Duchess at the Nobleman, inside a new Hilton-branded hotel in South Main Village, and found that both the city and the dining scene have grown up.
“To begin with, I think [chef] Tim Love has opened 87 restaurants, so I have a lot of catching up to do,” Thompson said on a recent visit in her consulting role at Duchess at the Nobleman, in an old fire station at 503 Bryan Ave. near Panther City BBQ.
A Cedar Hill native, she landed in Fort Worth 15 years ago to open Brownstone on Crockett Street in the space that is now Social House.
Now, her headquarters is in Sonoma County, California, where she has built a national reputation that took her to TV shows such as an appearance opposite Love on the Food Network show “Tournament of Champions.”
Back in Texas to start Duchess with Kopplin, Thompson was stunned at the changes.
“I couldn’t believe the growth,” she said. “Places with names like Clearfork — like, what is that?”
Diners could easily say the same about Duchess at the Nobleman.
For starters, anyone using Siri or another voice recognition app to find it gets the directions to Dutch’s Hamburgers by mistake.
Duchess at the Nobleman is the unassuming breakfast and dinner restaurant in — deep breath — the Nobleman Fort Worth, Tapestry Collection by Hilton, a $26 million hotel in the old Fire Station No. 5.
“This area’s so diverse, I love it,” she said.
“There’s a pie place, a beignet place. It’s so cute.”
Her opening menu with Kopplin at the Duchess is short for now but covers a bit of everything — shrimp scampi, trout, a rib-eye, a roasted half-hen, eggplant schnitzel and a smashed brisket-onion cheeseburger.
Appetizers include salads, a beef-and-boar chili, oysters and an avocado pizza.
“If people ask, ‘What is Casey’s style?’ it’s fresh-forward, seasonal cooking — I try to utilize the local ingredients,” she said.
The rib-eye is brined in Japanese koji flavoring.
The eggplant is charred, dredged in Ritz cracker crumbs, and finished with a poblano chimichurri.
“It eats like a steak,” she said.
The avocado pizza is a simple concept — “If you like avocado toast, why not avocado pizza?” she asked.
The breakfast menu is simpler but also features Turkish-spiced eggs.
Duchess at the Nobleman is open daily for breakfast and reopens at 4 p.m. for dinner; 682-432-3000, hilton.com.
This story was originally published June 4, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
