Where to Eat

Where to eat in Fort Worth right now: 8 restaurants for holiday groups

Nachos are good for sharing.

Spiral Diner

December has arrived and the holidays are nearly here. Many of us are eager to return to traditions, including holiday gatherings for family and friends. For these occasions, you need to find a restaurant that can handle a group: someplace with plenty of room and ideally an easygoing attitude, to accommodate you and your festive posse.

As part of our annual tradition, for our December edition of Where to Eat, we follow a holiday theme, with suggestions on the best restaurants to take your visitors and show them what Fort Worth has to offer.

Here are 8 of the best restaurants in Fort Worth for dining out with a group:

DeLucca Gaucho Pizza & Wine
For starters, DeLucca serves pizza, so that's an automatic yes, regardless of how big your group is; pizza always wins. But DeLucca is also unique — a novel concept that follows the model of the churrascaria, but instead of chunks of meat, servers deliver slices of pizza, in a choice of up to 20 flavors. It's not just pizza — you get complimentary lobster bisque to start, and an amazing arugula salad, and it's only $23 per person. Husband-and-wife owners Evandro Caregnato and Vanderleia Mallmann are natives of Brazil who worked for the Texas de Brazil chain. The Hulen Street location opened in February, with a big wraparound patio and the option to order a la carte items such as Prime and Wagyu steaks, salads, and seafood.

El Ranchito
For Tex Mex, many head to Fort Worth's iconic Joe T. Garcia's, surely deserving, but switch it up to this long-running, family-owned spot in Arlington, ready to welcome big parties, with food and atmosphere that are top-notch. (Plus they have a bigger, less limiting menu.) Owners Oscar and Laura Sanchez are from Monterrey and the restaurant specializes in northern Mexican cuisine featuring dishes such as cabrito, mollejas, and asado de puerco. They're known for their parrilladas — little grills that come to your table filled with combo fajitas, sausage, and ribs — and for making fresh tortillas in-house. Those are pretty good things to be known for. The restaurant is big and spacious and fun.

Fort Brewery
Brewery formerly on Magnolia recently reopened near the Foundry District, and if you want room, this is the place. Now located in the former Parker Candy factory just north of the West Seventh and Foundry districts, the brewpub is in a 25,000-square-foot multifaceted space with brewery, restaurant, patio, live music stage, lawn games, colorful murals, and retractable roof. There are 15 beers on tap, plus a crowd-pleasing menu with pizza, sandwiches, burgers, and wings, including great dishes to share such as crudites with hummus, breadsticks with marinara sauce, and biscuits & gravy.

Goldees Barbecue
If your out-of-town visitors include BBQ fans, then Goldees is probably going to be a must. This small BBQ joint in Kennedale, opened in 2020 by five friends and Arlington natives, was vaulted into the spotlight when it won the No. 1 spot on Texas Monthly's Top 50 BBQ restaurants in Texas. The restaurant gets praise for showing restraint on its seasoning, and for creative sides such as peppery cheese grits and pork hash. You can drag your visitors through what has become a grand BBQ tradition: arriving ridiculously early, waiting in a long line, and drinking beer before noon. An outdoor space with picnic tables makes it great for a group.

Il Modo
Classy Italian restaurant at the Harper Fort Worth hotel is a sophisticated addition to the dining scene not just downtown but in all of Fort Worth. Who else can boast a glass-walled pasta room spotlighting pasta that's been made by hand? The menu feels fresh, foregoing the usual red-sauce for creative pastas, salads, and appetizers like clams with grilled sourdough bread. There are big dishes to share at the table such as whole sea bass and a 22-ounce rib eye with bone marrow butter. See, sharing, that's the theme. As a hotel restaurant, it's also open for breakfast and lunch, but that could be a problem, as you may not wish to share the malted waffle with whipped cream & berries.

Spiral Diner
Spiral is about hometown pride: This award-winning restaurant, now a chain with three locations, was first founded in Fort Worth, back when "vegan" was still a challenge to pronounce. The world has come around to Spiral's point of view, with plant-based burgers at McDonald's and plant-based chicken nuggets on the menu at Golden Chick. Spiral Diner also showed the world that vegan didn't have to be salads, with a menu that includes nachos, burgers, and chopped BBQ sandwiches. The Fort Worth branch is worth a special trip for the pastries, with cakes and pies that are among the best around.

Tokyo Café
North Texas has seen a big influx of Asian restaurants, and every one of them merits a visit. But give your group the gift of a meal at this venerated Japanese restaurant, with impeccable sushi, bento boxes, ramen, tempura red snapper, and garlic-teriyaki chicken. Husband-and-wife owners Mary Kah-Ho and Jarry Ho spent two years rebuilding their restaurant after a fire, and made it more vital than ever, with lovely decor and a large selection of craft cocktails and Japanese whiskeys. The creativity never stops: They're always offering inventive specials such a roll-of-the-day with cucumber, avocado, and spicy shrimp wrapped in rice and soy paper, topped with crunchy rice pearls and a spicy garlic oil aioli; or tuna nachos to share, with spicy tuna, krab mix, and avocado, topped with togarashi and chili mayo.

Wicked Butcher
You've gotta have a steakhouse on a list such as this, and Fort Worth has no shortage. But this new downtown entry has emerged among the city's finest. Housed on the ground and basement levels of the refurbished Sinclair Hotel — an Art Deco beauty dating back to 1930 — Wicked possesses a special-occasion vibe, yet is casual and approachable – ideal for families and groups. Shareable items at dinner include a double-rib steak for two, served tableside, plus oysters, a charcuterie board, and deviled eggs. But this is a hotel restaurant, so it's open for breakfast and lunch, too, with breakfast tacos, chicken & waffles, and a pastrami sandwich.

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Teresa Gubbins contributed to this story.

lists where-to-eat holidays

Fresh Pasta News

Where to eat in Fort Worth right now: 6 hottest new restaurants

Bocca Osteria Romana

Twirling the pasta at Bocca Osteria Romana

Restaurants seemingly open and close in waves, and right now, they’re opening. Over the past few weeks, there’s been an influx of new restaurants in and around Fort Worth, from a cool new Italian spot to high-end Tex Mex to Texas’ favorite cuisine, barbecue.

For this month’s Where to Eat, we take a look at six of the area’s latest restaurants.

225 BBQ
This beloved craft barbecue food truck has finally opened its first brick-and-mortar, at 601 E. Main St. near downtown Arlington. 225 fans will recognize the new restaurant's location: It was where owner/pitmaster Rene Ramirez operated temporarily last year, sharing the space with a bar. After the bar moved out, Ramirez took over the building, transforming it into a full-fledged barbecue restaurant. Ramirez’s menu includes ‘cue essentials such as moist brisket and meaty pork ribs, along with several Mexi-cue-inspired dishes that have become his calling cards, like excellent birria ramen, brisket elote, chipotle chicken nachos, and brisket quesadillas. His burgers are great, too.

Bocca Osteria Romana
New Italian restaurant in the South Main area, at 411 S. Main St. #104, specializes in housemade pastas, freshly made focaccia, and beautiful salads filled with seasonal ingredients. The restaurant comes from a trio of Texans - brothers Alfonso and Alessandro Salvatore and their cousin Eduardo Mariel - who have lived and cooked all over the world, including Puerto Rico, where they opened the original Bocca Osteria Romana. Pasta is their thing, and it comes in several forms, from spaghetti alla carbonara, made with guanciale, percorino romano cheese, and crushed black pepper, to the bacon-studded bucatini all’amatriciana, to a plate of classic cacio e pepe. Entrees include lamb chops, osso bucco, and gorgeous seasonal salads.

Los Guapos Mexican Street Food
Newly opened at 2708 West 7th St., Los Guapos Mexican Street Food is the latest concept from Angel Fuentes, the well-known Fort Worth chef who made a name for himself at the original location of Mariachi’s Dine In and Guapo Tacos, two Mexican restaurants born inside an east side gas station. Los Guapos is Fuentes’ first full-on brick-and-mortar. His menu includes many of the dishes he’s known for, like superb birria tacos, pozole, huge burritos, and a wide range of veggie dishes. New to his menu are street food-inspired items like huaraches, oblong-shaped pieces of fried masa dough topped with smashed pinto beans, vegetables, and proteins, and alambre, a traditional Mexican dish comprised of chopped meats and vegetables, held together with melted cheese, and served with tortillas.

Juicy Dumplings
The handmade Chinese dumpling trend hits the Fort Worth suburb of Euless, courtesy of this sleek new spot, originally called Home of Juicy Dumplings, in the Glade Parks shopping center. It’s a state-of-the-art restaurant where robots help deliver your food and the immersive decor is designed to make you feel like you’re under the ocean. There’ll be lots of oohing and ahing. But it’s not all show: Hong Kong natives, owner Rixin “Jimmy” Zheng and head chef Bosco Seung, offer a vast selection of Chinese dishes, including nearly a dozen variations of Chinese dumplings, including pan-fried pork buns, har gow (shrimp dumplings), Sichuan-inspired spicy wontons, vegetable dumplings, and soup dumplings. Elsewhere on the menu, there’s peking duck, Mongolian chicken, several noodle dishes, and cool desserts such as mango pancakes, made with razor-thin crepes layered with a mango-infused cream.

La Cabrona Cocina Mexicana
Long-awaited, high-end Mexican restaurant from Adam Shanaa and Jalal Chanaa, owners of the soon-to-reopen Terra Mediterranean, takes over the West 7th-area space originally occupied by Tillman’s Roadhouse at 2973 Crockett St. It’s a family-run spot whose kitchen is led by Rosario Ortega, a chef from Monterrey, Mexico, who’s using recipes passed down through generations. His menu includes dishes such as carne asada, camarones a la diabla, chile relleno, and whole fried snapper. There are plenty of tacos, made with your choice of skirt steak, slow-cooked pork, pan-seared tilapia, or grilled shrimp, and appetizers such as shrimp cocktail and ceviche. The restaurant is beautifully decorated with hand-painted murals and colorful furniture; there’s also a nice patio.

Tokyo Mizu
New sushi spot in North Arlington, at 2390 E. Lamar Blvd., in the space previously occupied by Take a Bao, puts a unique spin on the all-you-can-eat concept. Instead of going through a buffet-style line and loading up your plate, your server brings you five items at a time, all freshly made. When you finish those, you can order five more, and so on. Selections include a vast array of cooked and raw sushi, nigiri, tonkotsu ramen, pork dumplings, bulgogi bao buns, calamari, soup dumplings, and various fried rice dishes. The prices are a steal: $19.99 per person for lunch, $29.99 for dinner.

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