First Look: Biergarten on Lamar at Omni Dallas

Restaurateur Joe Palladino and his team at Coal Vines, Nick & Sam’s Steakhouse will unveil Biergarten at the Omni Dallas Hotel on Monday, Biergarten’s corporate chef, Angelo Landi, told me during a sneak peak last week.

The casual new space is a real looker: painted brick, lots of natural light spilling in though big windows, a terrific outdoor patio and plenty of space to move around. The menu is beer garden basic – a few sandwiches (ruben, hot pastrami, snacks), freshly baked pretzels, a burger fashioned from dry-aged Allen Bros. beef (the same Chicago purveyor that provides prime steaks to Nick & Sam’s), sausages. Oh, and beer. Dozens and dozens of beers, both foreign and domestic. I’m particularly smitten with the Stiegl Radler, on draft, a grapefruit beer that sounds weird but tastes delicious and refreshing.

There’s free underground parking, so that’s a plus. Biergarten’s hours and menu are in flux, but corporate chef Angelo Landi says he’s planning to stay open late every night.

Next door, Paladino and Landi are wrapping up construction on Coal Vines, which is now slated to debut around Thanksgiving. “We hope to have 10 or 12 Coal Vines around DFW pretty quickly,” Landi told me, with new stores slated next for Richardson then Lakewood. Coal Vines cooks its pizzas in brick ovens fueled partially by coal.

Herrera’s Tex-Mex and Little Katana Signature Grill sushi bar are under construction in the same Omni space. All are part of a $27 million project on the grounds of the Omni.

555 S. Lamar St., Dallas