When you notice a “snub,” think about it in the context of the list’s values. Even now, my private spreadsheet goes up to 56.īig-money national chain Carbone is a deliberate omission from our 50 Best Restaurants. My original 50 Best draft had 85 restaurants, which unfortunately is not how math works. I hope that by recognizing restaurants with integrity, consistency, uniqueness, and courage, we can help develop those traits at new establishments across the city.Ĭertainly, those values helped clarify the path when I was struggling with rankings. I hope that our 50 Best Restaurants list encourages those values in the future. Of course, there are also more obvious values in play: taste, service, value for money, accessibility, memorability, and plain old fun.Can you have this experience anywhere else, or is it copying an experience from somewhere else? Would a tourist walk away from this meal thinking, “wow, Dallas is cool”? Will this restaurant be good every day, every season, or does the experience change based on where you sit or which cook held the saltshaker? Was I recognized as a dining critic, and if so, was my experience different from most other customers’? Do the menus change with the seasons, reflecting the best produce, meat, and seafood on the market at each moment? Or are summery corn salads mysteriously still available in January? Is the produce local? Are meals cooked without shortcuts? Is the food honest to its creators’ experience or education? Does the hospitality experience build trust with customers? Does the restaurant reflect a clear, individual idea of what good food should be? Is it willing to serve something new? Or is it a copycat that jumps on the trends everyone else is doing? That includes my values as the author, and the goals that Dallas, as a food city, should aspire to meet.Īs you browse our new ranking, make notes of which restaurants to try, and wonder what on earth was wrong with the weirdo who put all these places in this order, look to the values. As I grappled with the challenge of revising Dallas’ 50 Best Restaurants, which we last updated in September 2021, I learned to think less about the absurdity and more about the values our list would reflect. 43.īut ranking a list of the best is also a statement of values. There’s no way we can really know that, say, No. Ranking a list of the 50 best anything, in order, is an absurd enterprise.
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