Holiday feasting

Best Fort Worth restaurants for Christmas 2022 dining in or to-go

Leave the Christmas feast to someone else this year.

Christmas is really a two-day dining extravaganza, with celebratory meals served from Christmas Eve through Christmas night. This list compiles restaurants serving Christmas Eve and Christmas Day brunches and dinners along with some to-go options for at-home celebrations. Keep checking back as the list will quickly grow. (Looking for restaurants to take out-of-town guests throughout the holiday season? Find some great options here.)

97 West Kitchen & Bar
The Hotel Drover restaurant will serve a four-course, prix-fixe dinner both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with choice of appetizer, soup or salad, main course, and dessert. Menu highlights include chicken fried Texas oysters, caramelized onion cream soup, venison Wellington, and wood-grilled filet mignon with buttered lobster tail. Dinner is $99 and will run 4-9 pm. Or visit for brunch on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. The $49 menu will be served 8 am-2 pm and includes choice of sharable starter like cast iron cinnamon rolls, and a main course like lobster omelet or steak and eggs.

B&B Butchers & Restaurant
While the restaurant will be closed Christmas Day, B&B will serve its normal Saturday brunch menu on Christmas Eve and will feature Christmas carolers during dinner service from 6:30-7:30 pm. Also don’t miss the restaurant’s “Reinsteer” available for photos outside. B&B to-go options include holiday menus to feed a crowd. Whole roasted prime rib ($650) comes with whipped potatoes and Yorkshire pudding. There’s also ready-to-roast file mignon whole tenderloin ($350), pork crown roast ($85), and ready-to-eat whole Berkshire smoked ham ($115). Sides and hors d’oeuvres are available a la carte, and orders require 48 hours' notice.

Bacchus Kitchen + Bar
The Grapevine restaurant inside Hotel Vin will serve Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner with a five-course menu featuring pumpkin bisque, charcuterie, salad, rib roast, and chocolate mousse layered with raspberry ganache. Dinner is $90 and will be served from 5-9 pm both evenings.

Blue Mesa Southwest Grill
The Fort Worth location will serve its famous all-you-can-eat brunch on Christmas Eve, 9 am-4 pm ($30 for adults, $10 for kids 6-11, and free for kids under 6; reservations recommended). A new to-go option is a Holiday Fajita Party Pack, which includes grilled chicken and steak fajitas, chicken taquitos, queso, guacamole, adobo pie, smoky black beans, coconut lime rice, toppings, or tortillas. Desserts and magaritas can be added. Serves 8; $195 and can be picked up, or delivered within a 5-mile radius.

Bonnell’s Fine Texas Cuisine
The chefs at Bonnell’s are prepping elegant Christmas dinners to-go. All meal packages are cold-packed and come with reheating instructions. Options range from a whole beef tenderloin dinner with sides for eight ($450) to a whole prime rib dinner with sides for 16 ($600). Don’t forget bourbon-buttermilk pie for dessert. All options are also available a la carte. Order by December 16 for pick-up on December 23.

Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse
The downtown steakhouse will be open 3-8 pm both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, serving its normal menu along with a prix-fixe three-course menu ($87) featuring 20-ounce prime rib served with horseradish cream, red wine au jus, and château mashed potatoes.

Dickey’s Barbecue Pit
Heat-and-serve and ready-to-eat takeaway options include The Complete Feast (serving 10-12) featuring cornbread dressing, gravy, baked potato casserole, green beans with bacon, a dozen buttery rolls, and a choice of spiral-cut ham, smoked turkey, or prime rib. A modified Dinner Feast serves 8-10. Order online or via the Dickey’s App.

Omni Fort Worth Hotel
The downtown hotel will present its annual Christmas brunch buffet on the second level ballroom floor. The smorgasbord goes on and on with cheese and charcuteries, breads and rolls, salads, fruits and berries, chilled seafood display, breakfast dishes and sides, eggs made to order, clam chowder, carved meats to order, kids buffet, dessert display, warm churros, and Christmas bread pudding. The brunch is $76 for adults and $44 for children 6-12. Seating times are available every half-hour, 11 am-3 pm.

Ruth’s Chris Steak House
The fine dining steakhouse will be open on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, serving menu classics and a three-course prix-fixe meal. For at-home celebrations, they're offering a holiday feast ($195, serves four) featuring roasted beef tenderloin with horseradish cream, choice of salad, garlic mashed potatoes and creamed spinach, and personal cheesecakes. Holiday sides to-go start at $28 and can be picked up between 4-6 pm through December 23; 48 hours' notice required.

Simply Fondue
The Sundance Square underground restaurant will be open Christmas Eve at 4 pm, with the last reservation at 7 pm. Regular menu will be served; reservations here. They will be closed Christmas Day and December 26.

Toro Toro
The Pan-Latin steakhouse inside the Worthington Renaissance Fort Worth Hotel will serve dinner both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day along with a special Christmas Day brunch. The restaurant’s regular dinner menu will be served along with a chef special of roasted prime rib with jerk spiced marinade, mashed potatoes, asparagus, chipotle hollandaise, and ancho demi glaze. A buffet-style Christmas Day brunch with food stations will feature whole prime rib, chilled seafood, Belgian waffles, charcuterie, egg dishes, fresh fruit, and more. Brunch is $75 and will be served 10 am-2 pm. Dinner will be served 5-10 pm both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Wicked Butcher
The snazzy underground steakhouse at downtown’s Sinclair Hotel will serve an a la carte menu of seasonal dishes on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Highlights range from East Coast oysters with yuzu-cucumber broth and gold flakes to duck breast, lobster mac and cheese, rack of lamb, and slow roasted prime rib. Don’t miss the Scotch in the City cocktail make with house-made cinnamon syrup. Wicked Butcher will be open 5-11 pm on Christmas Eve and 11 am-9 pm on Christmas Day.

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Chef News

Fort Worth's Will Rogers Memorial Center welcomes bright new chef

FortWorthtx.gov

Will Rogers Memorial Center

There's a new chef in town: Waylon Cornelius, named executive chef of catering and concessions for Craft Culinary Concepts, the food and beverage provider at Will Rogers Memorial Center.

Will Rogers Memorial Center is the 120-acre entertainment complex anchoring Fort Worth’s Cultural District, owned and operated by the City of Fort Worth. Cornelius will oversee menus for trade shows and other events at the center which bring in more than 2 million visitors a year.

Craft Culinary Concepts is headquartered in Glendale, Arizona, and manages food and beverage programs for entertainment, sports and cultural facilities.

Chef Waylon Corneliusfortworthtx.gov

According to a release, Cornelius joined the team this summer and is already shifting the expectations of guests from a typical “BBQ and beans” menu to a bill of fare satisfying every kind of palate.

“We always have fajitas ready to go, but we also make a beautiful Beef Wellington or baked salmon with a pink salt crust,” Cornelius says in a statement.

For consumer trade shows, Craft and its partners Caribou and Taco Heads offer more choices for the thousands of guests who attend events at WRMC annually.

“Some of our equestrian guests are away from home and here for several days, and they need more than popcorn and hot dogs,” Cornelius says. “Our concessions offer biscuits and gravy, burritos made in-house, strawberry salad, fruit and yogurt cups.”

A native of Mansfield, Cornelius grew up helping in a farm-to-table kitchen. He was raised on a farm with his mother, grandmother, and grandfather -- a Vietnam veteran who enjoyed vegetable gardens and raising hogs and chickens. He studied computer science after high school and holds an associate's degree in Cultural Resource Management and Policy Analysis from Tarrant County College.

He's a 2003 graduate of AIMS Academy of Culinary Arts in Dallas where he was mentored by a number of great chefs. While training as assistant executive sous chef at the AAA four-diamond Grand Hyatt DFW, he worked with Executive Chef Sutti Sripolpa, chef Eric Dreyer (who went on to be Oprah Winfrey’s personal chef), and Chef Jean-Claude Plihon, under whom he honed his French cooking skills.

As executive sous chef at the opening of Perry’s Steakhouse and Grille in Southlake, Cornelius gained expertise with volume. While at HG Sply Co., he learned about gluten-free items and other food allergies.

HG Sply is also where he crossed paths with Chef James R. Schell III, Craft’s general manager at WRMC, who recruited Cornelius to the complex.

"James said he needed someone who can hit moving targets, push the culinary team to be more avant-garde and use locally sourced, seasonal ingredients, so here I am," Cornelius says. "Culinary is a small world."

“I want people to say, ‘When we were in Fort Worth, you won’t believe what we got at Will Rogers!’” Schell says. “Even the celebrities who perform [in the auditorium] are surprised. When Chicago played here recently and we served dinner backstage, they said they felt treated like the Rolling Stones.”

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