NEW YORK, Sept 14 ― Tastemakers at Bon Appétit magazine have declared Dallas, Texas, the most US exciting city to eat in this year.

The American food magazine has named Dallas the 2019 Restaurant City of the Year thanks to a restaurant renaissance led by ambitious chefs who are rejecting large-scale restaurant group models and creating highly specific personal dining spaces, says the magazine.

“Though Dallas and its food scene have long been overlooked in favour of other Texas towns, today, the city's in the midst of a renaissance, with excellent new restaurants and bars opening so fast and so furious that it's hard to keep up,” writes BA's Hilary Cadigan.

 

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Our 2019 Restaurant City of the Year is Dallas, TX. (And, no, we didn't spell Austin wrong.) Chefs in this oft-skipped food destination are *finally* ditching the large-scale restaurant group models of yesteryear and instead forging their own paths. These new highly specific, highly personal spaces are ultimately making the city A Very Good Place to Eat. See: Donny Sirisavath's artful yet technically pristine riffs on the Laotian food he grew up eating at @khaonoodleshop, or Misti Norris's butchery-and-fermentation playground at @petraandthebeast, or Reyna Duong's tiny-but-mighty banh mi spot @sandwich_hag. Because once you look past the slick football-field-sized steakhouses, you'll find a city of thriving neighborhoods, each boasting its own homegrown gems. Head to the link in our profile for more reasons to book a flight to DFW ASAP. 📸: @yungbludlau

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It's not just one person or one thing that's driving the change, but rather Dallas's community of highly ambitious chefs, hailing from different backgrounds, working independently and yet with a palpable sense of synchronicity.

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Their list of exciting places to eat in Dallas includes Petra and the Beast, where the chef's food philosophy rests on foraging, fermenting, and nose-to-tail cookery.

 

The list also includes a Japanese eatery that specialises in sushi handrolls (Nor Handroll Bar); a Mexican restaurant that serves regional Guadalajaran fare (José); and a Laotian restaurant where noodles are made from scratch (Khao Noodle Shop).

Visit Bon Appétit for the full list of restaurants. ― AFP-Relaxnews