Start off an evening of fine dining with a fresh beet salad at the newly opened Craft at the W in Dallas.

The changing face of Dallas came into focus last week. With the opening of the W Hotel, serving as the centerpiece of Ross Perot Jr.’s massive Victory Park development, Big D enters a way-overdue era of hospitality.

For food-obsessed observers, this debut heralds the long-awaited Craft, a New York City import created by Tom Colicchio, one of the most decorated chefs in American culinary history.

Why, you may ask, should we care? For starters, it says something that this is only the second Craft–not the 10th location, as Nobu was when it opened at the Hotel Crescent Court in Dallas last summer. On top of that, the dining experience at Craft was called “a vision of food heaven” by The New York Times after the restaurant’s Manhattan opening in 2001.

To sample the food and atmosphere, and to spy on the new restaurant, I stopped by for dinner on opening night last week. To say it’s very New York is an understatement, both in style and budget.

Occupying much of the W’s ground floor, Craft splits its space on either side of the lobby. My foursome sipped wine in the Living Room Bar, which lies on the north end of the building, before walking a few feet south to the restaurant proper.

There, we forced ourselves to focus on the menu, but it was a little tricky, between ogling the space design (horsehair walls, a proliferation of pendant lighting) and trying not to gawk at some patrons’ scarce wardrobe selections. Distractions also included a swarming team of smart, eager servers, which usually calms down once a restaurant has been in business a while and everyone settles into a comfortable rhythm.

The menu, however, requires some study, as this is a component-style meal operation: Everything is a la carte, with offerings organized according to food type. Among first courses, for instance, are fish and shellfish, such as raw and cured or marinated; charcuterie, including foie gras terrine; roasted meats such as quail and sweetbreads; and salads, ranging from arugula to heirloom tomatoes. Some main dish choices are priced $50 to $70.

We began with a variety of lovely East Coast oysters ($3 each), skipped raw blue fin tuna ($21) and French sardines ($18), continued with foie gras in a berry-apple compote ($21) and silken white asparagus with preserved lemon ($16). From the lengthy main course selections, we chose wild striped bass ($32) and braised, super-tender beef short rib ($28), each of which came in its own little iron dish.

Vegetarians are well-served at Craft, as 28 side-dish choices include everything from sweet, roasted cipolline onions ($8) and tart, vinegary baby red mustard greens ($9) to braised romano beans ($7) and a frilly meat mushroom called hen of the woods ($14).

Numerous dessert options gave our table much to contemplate, but ultimately we took pleasure in miniature upside-down cakes and black cherry-pistachio tart ($8 each) and sweet, gooey roasted Manzana bananas ($4).

Wine selections are as numerous and expensive as you’d expect, but the sommelier led us to nice picks like the grassy, light Nigl Gruner ($11 glass), an Austrian varietal.

Reservations will be a must, particularly with this week’s opening of Ghostbar upstairs. You may never recognize Dallas again.

Craft at the W Hotel
2440 Victory Park Lane
Dallas
214-397-4111

This entry was posted on Friday, June 30th, 2006 at 9:32 pm and is filed under Craft. Tags: America, Apple, Austria, Cherry, Dallas, Design, East Coast, food, food heaven, food type, food-obsessed observers, Green, Hotel Crescent Court, Lane, Living Room Bar, Location, Manhattan, New York, New York City, Oman, Opening, Price, Ross Perot Jr., Set, South, Table, The New York Times, Tom Colicchio, Victory Park, W Hotel, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.