Dress Up & Get Down, Dallas Done Right

Picking favorites is hell, but here are some notables:
My first trip to NYC post-lockdown was a deep, fresh city breath. Hiking El Yunque rainforest in Puerto Rico - 10/10
I’d also rec taking the Amtrak Starlight Express along the west coast when you get the chance. I took the LA to San Fancsisco route.

Dallas, Texas. Not an adjacent suburb.

I tend to travel for a single anchor, whether it is an exhibition, a concert, or a performance. I book reservations early, make lists of bars, restaurants, parks, and shops, and map out museum hours and locations.

The only thing I ever agonize over is the hotel. Most hotels are great, but excellent hotels are heaven. I like arriving in a city and pretending I live there for a few days, or disappearing onto a beach and staying put. That is my binary.

I plan everything, but once I arrive, I let whim, or, under the best circumstances, locals lead the way.

Leisure. Even on a trip with a lot of activity, I try to ensure that when I travel for pleasure, I don’t have to set alarms; I focus on what I want to do rather than what may feel like an obligation.

I am a prepared packer - I have everything assigned, down to the cozy clothes in the hotel. A maxi dress and a pair of motorcycle or cowboy boots can take you almost anywhere - including long walks around any city and a nice dinner. 

True to Dallas form, I dress up — even more when I travel, especially solo. It’s a simple way to make sure doors open. I find I’m more willing to take a chance on something new or eccentric when I am in another city. No one knows if it’s a risk or just my style. It usually proves what I’ve always suspected: no one cares what I’m wearing more than I do.

Dallas is an excessive city. We love a presentation - from design and architecture to art collections, fashion, highways, and restaurants. We show off. But we’re also a city that remembers, holds grudges, and wants to win. Even when no one’s keeping score. We know our dark past. We know we’re underestimated. We like our edge, and many of us like it here. It’s still my favorite high-low city. I find Dallas to be rich in texture. Spectacle and grit live side by side in a special way.

I’d say Dallas is a city for locals. There are many incredible ways to spend time here, but we don’t cater to tourists; we just fold you into the day-to-day. But many of the observations are true: people here will be both friendly and generous and snobby and overdressed. Please try to enjoy that about us and don’t tell us it’s a bad thing.

My honest advice is to figure out where you’re actually going. Dallas isn’t the same as Fort Worth, or Arlington, or any of our northern suburbs — or the more eccentric small towns like Waxahachie or Canton. The vibe shifts are wide from town to town; that’s a character trait, not a flaw.

Oh, probably venue/stadium tours? And I know why venues everywhere must do this, but I beg patrons: Buy tickets and visit venues in action. Go see a game, a play, or a concert. We have incredible venues with equally dedicated hospitality teams that make the experience truly worthwhile.

Southern hospitality is real - just surrender. The South barely considers Texas the South, but whatever bit of Southern hospitality we have retained is real and ours. We know how to party, and we take good care.

More concisely: All HEB Supermarkets, including Central Market varieties.

Cool might not be the word, but the nature of the JFK assassination and its impact on Dallas still lingers. There’s the larger Texas connection to LBJ, and all the ways that moment rippled through local business, popular culture, conspiracy theories, city legend, Texas politics, and community organizing. And there’s the long-standing desire to be remembered for something other than that day. The older I get, the more I understand that to really understand Dallas, you have to understand that moment. It’s intersections, its shadows. It explains as much about the city as it does about the era itself.

Dallas is a business town, and many of its charms and sins evolve from that truth.

Local lore says the frozen margarita was born because someone had access to a 7-Eleven Slurpee machine. By that logic, we get to claim 7-Eleven, Slurpees, and frozen margaritas. There’s similar lore about the original El Fenix scaling the tortilla chip, in part because of access to Frito-Lay equipment. (Another Texas giant.) Suddenly, chips could be produced en masse and made free to the guests.

These stories reveal something about Dallas: our culture of business often turns into a culture of innovation. Not the romantic, underground kind — though that exists too — but an innovation rooted in proximity and resources.

Many Dallas things become bigger than the city itself. The frozen margarita, microchips, German Chocolate Cake, Chili’s (you're welcome), Erykah Badu. People say Dallas has no culture, but that critique overlooks how culture is defined. Culture is represented by what a place makes possible, and here, business access has always been part of the city’s creative mythology.

Dallas dreams, and then it scales.

Dallas’s only real rivalry is Cowboys vs. Eagles. No one’s actually in a rivalry with Austin. Houston is twice our size, so at best it’s an eldest sibling vs. spoiled baby dynamic. San Antonio holds onto something quintessentially Texan; it stays in its own lane. Fort Worth is the closest to the real thing. We can talk shit, and they can talk shit back — but no one else should.

My favorite meal is oysters, fresh bread, some veg special, steak frites, and a cold white wine recommended by the bartender at The Grape, sometime between 2010 and 2015. The Grape has since been replaced by the equally fabulous SISTER from Duro Hospitality, but when I think of my favorite meals and impromptu happy hours, they were all at that tiny bar or out on the patio at The Grape on Greenville Avenue. If you know, you know.

AM - Mid-Day
Upon waking, we are headed to Starship Bagel for breakfast, and a little walk around Main Street into The Joule hotel to grab coffee at WKND coffee, browse 4510, and see the Eyeball, smell perfume at Neiman Marcus, and maybe have a glass of champagne at the Zodiac Room.

From there, we’ll head to the Nasher Sculpture Center. We’ll spend time in the main exhibition and the sculpture garden, and I’m also hoping to sneak us into a back building that once housed James Turrell’s Tending, (Blue). We are stopping by the cafe for an iced tea and to sit on the patio and gaze at the garden.

In this visit, it’s summertime, and so we are going to finish our afternoon poolside at Chateau Le Sol. And if you aren’t a poolside lounger type, then we are headed to Wild Detectives and Fine Print for coffee and book and magazine flipping and a walk about on Jefferson Blvd. We will prob stop for a happy hour cocktail at Texas Theatre. If you want a taco, we'll grab one on this part of the journey.

PM - Late night
At sunset, I am going to suggest we take a walk at White Rock Lake while the rowers are practicing. It’s just one of my favorite things.

Let’s hope there is time for a costume change and to get a little gussied up. We have reservations at Carlos Elegante for dinner - we are either doing the chef’s tasting or letting the service team handle the order. They do it right.

Since I enjoy being in the audience, I am grabbing us tickets to a Mavs game, something at the Majestic Theatre, or we can see the queens at the Rose Room or jazz at the Balcony Club. After that, and especially if you haven’t been to Dallas before, we are headed to Round-Up Saloon for some dancing, some jello shots, and some classic good times. It’s time for a nightcap, maybe a meatball or a hot dog. We are headed to Sylvestro or Mike’s Gemini Twin, two sides of Dallas hospitality’s Pasha Heidari coin, are essential.

The whole time, you are going to be like, “OMG, this doesn’t feel like Dallas.” And I am going to sternly remind you that we have been in Dallas at every part of this wonderful day. But I will be sweet about it. 

To make up for the hangover you might be enduring, we will go to La Victoria for breakfast and Killer Joe’s for coffee the next morning.

Everything!

Lakewood/East Dallas, Design District/Oak Lawn, Oak Cliff

Village Bakery (Greenville or Knox)
Killer Joe
Wayward Coffee

Rose Café
Sandwiches @ Jimmy’s

Chef’s Menu at Carlos Elegante
Urbano
Ayahuasca Cantina

The Mansion Bar
Texas Theatre
Mike’s Gemini Twin

SCOUT