Asador, the Restaurant of the Dallas Renaissance Hotel, is An Unexpected Delight

dulce de leche ice cream at Asador

Asador’s chefs, Dean James Max and Brad Phillips

asador kale salad might make you a vegan

Anyone can order up a bunch of local produce and and call it farm to table, but chef Brad Phillips of Asador has done his homework. His baby kale spinach with jicama and coins of roasted golden beets, sourced from Rocky Tassione’s farm and tossed with a peppery poblano vinaigrette, may be the best thing to happen for vegans in years.

Phillips traipses through farms and ranches to find baby vegetables and pastured beef for his lunch and dinner menus at Asador, the restaurant of the Dallas Renaissance Hotel. Out back, Phillips smokes briskets and ribs on a mesquite smoker chained to a post, lest the crowd at Market Center, next door, steal it for themselves.

You can start with beef fat french fries or mussels steamed in a broth seasoned with ginger, cilantro, lemon and Sambal, then move on to a seared scallop bathed in a tart, Texas-grown ruby red grapefruit beurre blanc or even a half dozen vegan options. All of them are good.

And since Hudspeth Farms provides the pastured beef, pork and lamb, which means if you’re a Paleo devotee, you can eat here to your heart’s content; unless, of course, your heart is craving house made ice cream drizzled with tuffled honey. In that case, find a loophole.