Whiskey Cake, New Plano Farm-to-Fork Restaurant, Now Open

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIUt1EgdV2w

Whiskey Cake, the new farm-to-fork concept in Plano from the folks behind the Ranch in Las Colinas, opens today. The place is unlike anything in the Tollway corridor: a cross between the cocktail culture of Bolsa, the fresh/local emphasis of the Ranch in Las Colinas, the comfort factor of the Porch. The menu is from chefs John Franke and TJ Lengnick, who know how to balance good, solid cooking without being fussy.

At the bar, you’ll find a mix of classic and creative cocktails made with fresh fruit and vegetable juices (there are two ginormous industrial juicers right there on the back bar–one for fruit, the other for veggies), and beer served freezing cold. Soft drinks are poured from bottles, not soda guns. I’ll have more to say when Whiskey Cake gets its sea legs, but for a brand new restaurant, the restaurant is off to a good start. And with co-founders Jack Gibbons and Randy DeWitt in charge–and with Judd Fruia as the director of operations–Whiskey Cake could be a home run.

And while there are no immediate plans to expand or extend Whiskey Cake to other locations, Gibbons and his partners are busy rehabbing an old Red Lobster at the corner of SH 114 and Southlake Boulevard into their next concept, a sports bar named Red Dog Right, which is scheduled to open in early 2011. Who’ll be the manager of Red Dog Right? Jimmy Fell, until recently, a longtime partner in Sevy’s in Dallas.