Where to Eat

Where to eat in Fort Worth right now: 5 hot new restaurants for June

Up for some pasta?

Photo courtesy of Il Modo

With the pandemic continuing to fade, new restaurants are opening in and around Fort Worth at a fast and furious rate. There's so many new options: pasta, Southern cuisine, seafood, tacos, and good old American food.

For this month's Where to Eat, these are five of the brightest new restaurants in Fort Worth:

Ella B's
Classy Southern and soul food spot in Arlington comes from North Texas couple Patricia and Patrick Whitfield. If Patrick's name rings a bell, it's because he's a former chef for the Dallas Cowboys. He and Patricia have also run a catering business for more than a decade. The restaurant's name is an homage to his grandmother, Ella B. Whitfield, who inspired his love for cooking. The small menu is comprised of chef-inspired takes on classic dishes: deviled eggs topped with shrimp; fried chicken glazed with honey and butter; pan-seared salmon topped with crawfish etouffee. There’s also Sunday brunch with dishes such as oxtails and shrimp and grits.

Il Modo
Modern Italian restaurant in the recently opened Kimpton Harper Hotel downtown forgoes traditional red sauce dishes for more elevated fare. Executive chef Matt Williams, a Chicago native who moved to Fort Worth to lead he kitchen, focuses on pastas, freshly made just a few feet away from diners inside a room with floor-to-ceiling glass, giving diners a perfect view of what they’re about to eat. The half-dozen pastas, from spaghetti to rigatoni, are accented lightly, usually with just two or three ingredients – a simple approach that works exceptionally well. The menu also includes clams and a 22-ounce grilled ribeye with bone marrow butter, made for two.

La Onda
After a months-long delay, La Onda, husband-and-wife Victor and Misty Villarreal have opened their Latin-inspired seafood restaurant in an historic bungalow last occupied by Gypsy Scoops. Victor's menu zeroes in on raw and cooked seafood dishes, such as smoked clam & scallop ceviche; shrimp torta; and oysters on the half-shell. He does dry-aged fish, too, plus caviar. Misty handles the cocktail side of things, specializing in housemade sangria and agua frescas, along with specialty cocktails made with artisan mezcals.

Revolver Taco Lounge
Regino Rojas made good on his promise to return to Fort Worth, opening this stylish Mexican restaurant in the Sundance Square Plaza space most recently occupied by Taco Diner. (The original Revolver Taco was in Fort Worth, which he closed to focus on a Dallas location.) Refreshingly, his Michoacán-style food is more Mex-Mex than Tex-Mex. Made with fresh corn tortillas, tacos come filled with ingredients such as lobster, duck, and beef tongue. Other dishes include bluefin tuna tartare topped with caviar and rabbit meatball soup, all made from scratch. The restaurant also offers a reservations-only tasting menu, called Purepecha.

Towne Grill
A month after opening Maria's Mexican Kitchen near TCU, prolific restaurateur Felipe Armenta turns his attention to north Fort Worth, where he just opened this American restaurant at Alliance Town Center. Towne Grill is similar to another one of his ventures, The Tavern; matter of fact, the two could be siblings. Both offer upscale bar food and heavier entrees in a lively atmosphere. The menu has a little of everything: house burger, fried chicken sandwich, seafood dishes such as miso-glazed salmon, and Mexican food like chicken enchiladas and brisket tacos. As is the case at most of Armenta's restaurants, there's a long, varied drinks menu, with an emphasis on cool craft cocktails, wine, beer, and whiskey.

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Where to eat in Fort Worth: 9 restaurants to take your holiday guests

Manny Rodriguez

Chumley House

The holidays draw near and for many of us, that means one thing: family’s coming to town. Cook your heart out for them, yes, but take advantage of Fort Worth’s thriving restaurant scene and show off some of our city’s finest places to eat.

For our annual December edition of our monthly Where to Eat feature, we offer suggestions for where to take the family, with a list that accommodates every type of eater — from the Tex Mex lover to vegans to big splurges.

Here's Where to eat in Fort Worth right now:

Best barbecue: Goldee’s Barbecue
Lauded by The New York Times, recently high-fived by Michelin, and ranked No. 1 on Texas Monthly’s best barbecue list, Goldee’s remains the top ‘cue choice for many in Texas and beyond. Part of the experience of eating here is the wait. Chances are, you’ll stand in line (or sit; you can bring chairs) for a good two or three hours, but with the wait comes a sense of community - and isn’t that what the holidays are all about? Maybe? You can’t go wrong with the expertly smoked brisket, huge beef ribs, or housemade Lao sausage. Be sure to get a couple slices of bread; it’s made in-house.

Best Tex Mex:Fiesta Restaurant
Fort Worth of course is well known for its Mexican cuisine, and zeroing in on one spot for all to try can be difficult. Open for more than four decades, this charming, uncomplicated restaurant on the south side is a good choice: Its menu is more expansive than others, offering dozens of varieties of enchiladas, nachos, chimichangas, and other Tex Mex staples. It’s one of the few restaurants in the area to offer parrillada, sizzling platters of chicken thighs, steak, pork, and veggies that are perfect for sharing. On weekends, there’s an all-day breakfast menu with items such as menudo, chilaquiles, migas, and breakfast tacos.

Best Hot New Spot: The Chumley House
This exquisite new European-inspired steakhouse in the museum district is definitely one of the toughest tables to get right now. A spinoff of the original location in Dallas, The Chumley House offers a variety of European-inspired dishes, chef-inspired takes on American classics, and homages to global cuisine, in a handsomely designed space. Dishes include butter chicken pie with coriander-glazed roots and ginger yorgurt, herb popovers with salted butter, the signature Beef Wellington, a center-cut tenderloin and spinach crepe hidden in a puff pastry, and a halibut “porterhouse” with chimichurri. Steaks include a NY strip and bone-in ribeye. For dessert, there’s salted caramel Biscoff trifle with sweet mascarpone and icebox pie with blackberry cobbler crumble.

Best Outdoor Space: La Cabrona
Patios may definitely be an option for Christmastime dining - remember, this is Texas and typically it’s nice this time of year. This new high-end Mexican restaurant in the W. 7th area has a real beauty for a patio - it’s festively decorated and overlooks all the W. 7th activity. The Monterrey-inspired menu includes dishes such as mole chicken enchiladas, pan-roasted cactus tacos, and carne asada, as well as lighter options such as shrimp cocktail, ceviche, and aguachile, a dish comprised of shrimp cured in a lime and serrano pepper marinade. Great selection of margaritas, cocktails, and beers, too.

Best for a Large Group:Tannahill’s Tavern & Music Hall
With a spacious dining area that spans three rooms and a bar area, Tim Love’s restaurant/music venue combo in the Stockyards is a good option for large groups. As if it were made for indecisive diners, the menu is incredibly varied, with an emphasis on classic American cuisine. Appetizers include grilled fish tacos, raw oysters, smoked crab and green chili dip, and tuna tostadas. Main dishes feature a dry-aged beef double cheeseburger, smoked baby back pork ribs, brisket enchiladas, beef stroganoff, and smoked chicken. A kids menu includes a cheese quesadillas and chicken tenders with fries. The restaurant and music venue are in separate areas, so there’s an additional cost to see the concerts.

Best Late Night:Pho 95
Late-night dining is becoming a thing of the past in Fort Worth - thankfully, Ol’ South is still around. But in Arlington, after-hours grub is still easy to find. Pho 95’s east Arlington location, at 2525 E. Arkansas Ln., is a good option for night owls craving Vietnamese classics, like bowls of piping hot pho, beef stew and other hearty soups. It’s a fun, no-frills atmosphere in which the tables and chairs are pushed so closely together, you’re bound to make a friend or two.

Best splurge:Bonnell’s Fine Texas Cuisine
With some dishes hovering in the $60-$70 range, Fort Worth chef Jon Bonnell’s namesake restaurant is definitely on the upper end of the splurge scale. But this southwest Fort Worth restaurant is a truly unique experience, in that your guests may never eat food quite like this again. Among the entrees: pepper-crusted buffalo with whiskey cream, ancho chile-rubbed elk backstrap, made from a premium cut of meat that runs along the spine, and a larger-than-life tomahawk pork chop, rubbed with a special barbecue seasoning, with mascarpone whipped sweet potatoes. Appetizers include crispy quail legs and elk tacos - only in Texas.

Best on a budget: Sunny’s Cafe
Opened earlier this year in the space once occupied by Bavarian Bakery & Cafe, this second location of the Sycamore School Road staple offers breakfast and lunch essentials, made to order and priced inexpensively. For breakfast, try the excellent pancakes - pillow-y on the inside, with nicely browned edges on the outside. Home fries - cubed fried potatoes cooked with onions and peppers - are a must. Rotating lunch specials include chicken-fried steak, pork chops, Shepherd’s pie, and chopped steak, and come with your choice of two sides, usually for less than $12.

Best quintessential Texas: Dayne’s Craft BBQ
Though just a year old, Dayne’s Craft Barbecue has all the hallmarks of a quintessential Texas restaurant: It’s located in a small town (Aledo, about 20 minutes west of Fort Worth), it’s housed in a historic building that’s nearly a century old, and the dining room looks out onto railroad tracks. You can enjoy your terrific brisket sandwich or excellent smashburger while watching the trains chug by; that’s about as Texas as you can get.

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