This week in gluttony

BBQ smokeout leads 6 best food and drink events in Fort Worth this week

Lone Star Smokeout will bring three days of barbecue and live music to AT&T Stadium.

Lone Star Smokeout - Country Music & Barbecue Festival/Facebook

Barbecue music festivals are on trend, with another one arriving this week that will span three days at AT&T Stadium. But there are other more lowkey yet equally delicious options on this week's list, including two notable wine dinners, a pairing dinner with guest chefs at a longtime craft cocktail bar, and even a chance to enjoy wine and bites during a train ride in a 1920s coach. Plan for a taste of New Orleans during a hands-on cooking class, too.

Thursday, April 23

Mariatinto Wine Dinner at Don Artemio
The Mexican red blend brand Mariatinto will be highlighted during this five-course dinner at Don Artemio. Humberto Falcon – Mariatinto’s co-founder – will speak on the pairings while guests enjoy dishes such as yellowtail aguachile verde, seared scallops with mango habanero butter, and duck breast with Oaxacan mole Amarillo. The dinner is $185 and begins at 6:30 pm.

A Taste of New Orleans at Central Market Cooking School
Coinciding with Central Market’s Big Eats from the Big Easy launch this week featuring flavors of New Orleans throughout the store, this hands-on cooking class will provide for a true taste of the Crecent City. Learn how to make Creole gumbo with authentic roux, crab, shrimp, and sausage to pair with mustard greens and Creole rice fritters for dessert. The class is $95 and includes wine with the final meal. Class begins at 6:30 pm.

Friday, April 24

Lone Star Smokeout
Back for a second year is this three-day outdoor barbecue and country music festival, an expansion of the Windy City Smokeout held in Chicago. The parking lot party will be held outside AT&T Stadium Friday through Sunday featuring country music headliners Koe Wetzel, Riley Green, and Shaboozy along with more than a dozen other bands. Tickets include access to barbecue from 13-plus pitmasters from across Texas and the country, including local favorites Dayne’s Craft BBQ and Hurtado Barbecue, and Chicago spot Bub City. Single day general admission tickets start at $69.

Italia and Vino Wine Dinner at Farena
Guests will indulge in seven courses during this Italian culinary experience at Farena inside the Loews Arlington hotel. Executive chef Tony France will feature spring dishes ranging from bison tartare and Maine lobster to duck with truffle risotto and lamb loin, beef, and boar. Italian wine pairings will accompany each course. Reservations are $165 and dinner begins at 6:30 pm. (Complimentary valet is included.)

Grapevine Vintage Railroad Jazz Wine Train
Take a trip back in time on the Grapevine Vintage Railroad with wine, bites, and live jazz. Participants will ride in 1920s coaches and enjoy Texas wines from Grapevine winery tasting rooms and local charcuterie, with a live jazz set at onboarding. Tickets are $130 for a bench that seats two people and the experience begins at 7:25 pm.

Sunday, April 26

Sous Series: Four Courses at The Usual
Fort Worth’s original craft cocktail bar, The Usual, will host another edition of its dinner series featuring area sous chefs, this one with guest chefs Spencer Marks and Koby Perdue of Bonnell’s Fine Texas Cuisine. Guest bartender Joe Sherry from Refinery 714 atop The Kimpton Harper hotel will shake up cocktails by Barcardi. The dinner is $75 and seating times are 5 pm and 8 pm.

dinner chefs barbecue food events

Shrimp Cocktail News

Michelin taqueria to spin off new seafood restaurant in Fort Worth

Photo by Meg von Haartman on Unsplash

Will there be shrimp cocktail at new Mariscos Cortez?

A restaurant with heavy-hitting credentials is coming to Fort Worth: Called Mariscos Cortez, it's opening at 1151 Martin Luther King Jr Fwy., as a seafood-centric spinoff of Birrieria Y Taqueria Cortez, the family-owned restaurant which made the list of restaurants that earned nods in the Texas Michelin guide.

The restaurant will open walking distance from its sibling in a space that was originally built to become a location of Huddle House, the breakfast-all-day chain.

According to founder Rogelio Cortez, it'll open "hopefully in time for summer."

The family shared the news an Instagram post on April 15.

"As y’all may know, the Cortez family, we know how to cook,” says Alejandro Soto, turning to gesture towards their Michelin award hanging on the front of Birrieria Y Taqueria. "For those of you who have been asking us, 'When's your next venture gonna be?' I’m here to tell you right now we are going to be opening a new sister restaurant, right across the street."

"It's the same family, the same cooks, the same food you all love, but a whole new menu with different menu items — now we're going to kick in to the seafood," Soto says.

Birrieria Y Taqueria Cortez started out in 2020 as a food truck that specialized in the hot-hot trend of birria, the crispy, cheesy twist on a taco. According to WFAA, founder Rogelio Cortez was a roofer who was sidelined by injury and began to sell food out of his mother’s house before borrowing $15,000 from his father’s 401K to buy a truck.

They opened a brick and mortar a year later, at 2108 E Rosedale St. (Their original food truck still operates as a drive-thru window at 2220 E. Rosedale St.) Their fortunes rose in 2024 when they became one of only three Fort Worth eateries to earn a Michelin recommendation along with Panther City BBQ and Goldee’s BBQ, which received a Bib Gourmand. (Smoke 'N Ash in Arlington also garnered a recommendation.)

Birriera's menu is limited to birria and its variations such as tacos, flautas, and a birria pizza, and they plan to take the same limited approach at Mariscos Cortez, with a maximum of 10 items.

While they have not reveailed a menu, they outline the differences in an Instagram post, amusingly called "Mama Cortez vs. Papa Cortez."

"Y'all know that Mama Cortez got the birria flavor down, but a lot of you didn't know that Papa Cortez used to be a cook his whole life, and his specialty, guess what it was — seafood," they say. "Mariscos Cortez will bring old school, traditional, authentic flavors — a process that will assure freshness and flavor in our seafood!"

They've already begun updates on the space, painting the interior a pretty marina-style aqua blue, and meanwhile they playfully pose a question:

"Is Cortez turning East Rosedale into the hottest Food District?" their post asks.

awards openings tex-mex tacos michelin guide