Michelin-starred chef Bruno Davaillon is cooking fantastic French bistro food at this Dallas restaurant

If you’re a fan of French bistro cooking – grilled seafood, generous salads, steak and frites, for example – you don’t need to hop on a plane to Paris.

Pay a visit to Up On Knox instead. Right now.

Why the urgency?

Because Bruno Davaillon, the former top chef at The Mansion on Turtle Creek and Bullion in downtown Dallas, is temporarily the “resident chef” at this high-key brasserie on the edge of the Katy Trail.

Davaiilon, a France native who earned Michelin stars for his cooking in Las Vegas, has overhauled Up On Knox’s menu, plumping extra deliciousness into a menu crammed with craveable plates.

A rich tomato tart strewn with torn basil, a recent off-menu addition, tasted as if Davaillon had magically distilled the summer sun onto a pastry crust. Half-shelled oysters, ice-cold and briney, and a couple of plates of spicy, wood-fired prawns and creamy burrata heaped with prosciutto and grilled Texas peaches are all you’ll need to remind you why Davaillon ranks among of the most talented chefs in town.

Need more convincing? Order his escargot Bourguignonne, classically prepared with garlic-parsley butter, then go with his dark chocolate souffle for dessert.

“I don’t know what the future holds,” says Davaillon, “but right now, I’m not going anywhere.”

230 Knox St., Dallas, (469) 250-4007, uponknox.com.

A version of the story appears in the August issue of 360 West magazine