To me, the square plate represents everything wrong with upscale restaurants today – they are pretentious, impractical and all for show. Stephan Pyles’ eponymous, almost-new, critically acclaimed, upscale restaurant in Downtown Dallas has something even worse than square plates: square plates with wavy edges.
When I was served one of these, I looked up at the waiter in fear that I had stumbled into the darkest circle of trendy pretension. He held no comfort as he was wearing a black and orange uniform suitable for only the most “in” of hipsters.
I quickly averted my eyes only for them to fall upon a contemporary impressionist painting that looked like it was created by Monet on acid. The ceiling wasn’t a good place to look either because it was covered up by an angled wooden sculpture that was about as down to earth as its location in the restaurant. Shrinking into my chair, I was petrified, wondering if I would ever make it out of there without having some “too-cool-for-me” waiter make fun of my sweater.
I glanced at the wavy square plate once again and realized that comfort had been right before my eyes the whole time. In front of me sat Mr. Pyles’ own creation of chopped steak (in the shape of a burger patty) stuffed with foie gras with a side of a’oli, a slice of grilled tomato and four expertly-shaped waffle fries. All the ingredients were stacked on top of each other very neatly to make the prettiest dish I’ve seen in a while that tasted just as good as it looked and sounded.
Looking around again I realized that this plate couldn’t be placed anywhere else, but on a wavy and square plate in the middle of a wannabe modern art museum. I slowly began to accept the fact that the aptly named Stephen Pyles Restaurant was not emulating the typical side of the road Texas eatery.
Once I realized this, I regained my composure and addressed my waiter to ask about the half dozen oysters on the half shell that was also served with our main course for lunch.
“Excuse me, but which one of these sauces is cocktail sauce for the oysters?” As if he’d been asked this question a thousand times before, he explained that one was a green olive a’oli, one was a “Tabasco-like” mixture of apple cider and vinaigrette (among other things), and the final sauce was a “golden tomato cocktail sauce” – more orange than the traditional red and much thinner than your average cocktail dip.
Little twists like this one seemed to be the theme for the lunch; our iced teas were subversively replaced by iced green tea – apparently a norm for the establishment. That old switcheroo was not gladly accepted, but some of their gimmicks did manage to put a smile on my face, like when they exchanged my white napkin with a black one to “match my black slacks.”
Our steak knives also failed to toe the line as they were twice the weight of your normal tool for carnivores and held a particularly trendy shape – but again, the extra-ordinary plate of food nicely complemented it.
Twelve years ago Stephan Pyles opened a restaurant named Star Canyon that gave him national fame. In the year 2000 he paused from the culinary industry to travel the world and explore new cuisines. Last November Pyles opened the restaurant that now sits directly next to the Dallas Museum of Art and was called by the Dallas Observer the “un-Star Canyon.”
The Stephan Pyles Restaurant is being put on higher and higher pedestals, garnering praise from “D” Magazine, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, among many others. In truth, they are all spot on when they collectively agree that the restaurant is, in short, very good.
The food is an incredible array of international cuisines with an emphasis on the sea (about a novel’s worth of newspaper clippings have praised his ceviche alone). There are a few things that can easily be picked apart, like their annoying habit of twisting everything just so much that it doesn’t seem quite right, but in the end Pyles has stuck his neck out by opening this superbly avant-garde seafood restaurant in the middle of a historically not-so-accepting town. Fortunately for him, Dallas has yet to bring down the axe.
On the contrary, the restaurant seems to be doing incredibly well creating a see-and-be-seen atmosphere that trumps all dislikes for fish. In addition, Pyles left enough meaty dishes on the menu to satisfy anyone’s carnivorous impulses. In New York or L.A. it would be easier to denigrate the Stephen Pyles Restaurant as just another cuisine-nouveau copycat, but here in Dallas Pyles is instead taking a leap of faith that I, for one, will throw a cushion under.
At the end of the meal when I asked my friend who accompanied me to the restaurant what he thought of the place, his first response was that it was “better than Mac’s Place.” Hell yes, it’s better than Mac’s Place – and a lot of other restaurants in Dallas too.
