Fearing’s Wins OpenTable Diner’s Choice Award for Best Service

by Press

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 26, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE)

— OpenTable, Inc. (Nasdaq:OPEN – News) (www.opentable.com), a leading provider of free, real-time online restaurant reservations for diners and reservation and guest management solutions for restaurants, today announced the 50 restaurant winners of its 2010 Diners’ Choice Awards for Best Service. The list of winners is derived from nearly four million reviews submitted by OpenTable diners for over 10,000 restaurants in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
“Diners consistently tell us that service is one of two most important factors in making a meal great, often just as important as the food,” said Caroline Potter, OpenTable’s Chief Dining Officer. “The restaurants on this list have made a distinct impression with diners by providing top-notch service and truly completing the experience of dining out.”
Based on feedback collected from OpenTable diners between February 2009 and January 2010, the following 50 restaurants, listed in alphabetical order, received the highest scores from OpenTable diners, indicating that they were considered to provide the best service. For more information about this list, please visithttp://www.opentable.com/bestservice.
Acquerello — San Francisco, CA
Addison at The Grand Del Mar — San Diego, CA
Bacchanalia — Atlanta, GA
Binkley’s Restaurant — Cave Creek, AZ
Blue Hill at Stone Barns — Pocantico Hills, NY
Boca Cincinnati — Cincinnati, OH
Bone’s — Atlanta, GA
Cafe Renaissance — Vienna, VA
Canlis — Seattle, WA
Capital Grille — Boca Raton, FL
Capital Grille — Minneapolis, MN
Charleston — Baltimore, MD
Charleston Grill — Charleston, SC
CityZen — Washington DC
Cyrus — Healdsburg, CA
Daniel — New York, NY
Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse — Ft. Worth, TX
The Dining Room at The Langham — Pasadena, CA
The Dining Room at The Ritz-Carlton — San Francisco, CA
Eleven Madison Park — New York, NY
Erling Jenson The Restaurant — Memphis, TN
The French Laundry — Yountville, CA
The French Room — Dallas, TX
Fearing’s — Dallas, TX
Fearrington House Restaurant — Pittsboro, NC
Fig Tree — Charlotte, NC
Frasca Food and Wine — Boulder, CO
LGabriel’s Restaurant — Sedalia, CA
Gilmore’s — Westchester, PA
Highlands Bar & Grill — Birmingham, AL
Kai, Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort — Chandler, AZ
La Belle Vie — Minneapolis, MN
La Grenouille — New York, NY
Le Bernardin — New York, NY
Madrona Manor — Healdsburg, CA
Marcel’s — Washington DC
The Melting Pot — Myrtle Beach, SC
Nicholas — Red Bank, NJ
Palace Arms at the Brown Palace — Denver, CO
Peninsula Grill — Charleston, SC
Per Se — New York, NY
The Refectory Restaurant & Bistro — Columbus, OH
Robert’s of Charleston — Charleston, SC
Rosemary’s Restaurant — Las Vegas, NV
Saint Jacques French Cuisine — Raleigh, NC
Stonehouse at San Ysidro Ranch — Santa Barbara, CA
Terrapin Restaurant — Virginia Beach, VA
TRU — Chicago, IL
Vetri — Philadelphia, PA
Click here for more information.

Fearing’s Named Twice in Best Night Life in DFW

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Best Hotel bar: Rattlesnake Bar

The lounge that fronts Fearing’s restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton has become the sort of social hub that the city hasn’t seen since the grand old days of Beau Nash. High-livers, low-lifes, well-heeled conventioneers and visiting princelings buzz around the bar and swarm out onto the adjoining patio. Prices are Ritz-y, but pours are generous, and the wines-by-the-glass list usually features a discovery.
Best Meet market (30s and up): Rattlesnake Bar
Since it’s on everyone’s way to everywhere – and it serves alcohol – this is a great place to meet the next ex. Find as many varieties of poor life choices and self-sabotaging, repetitive- pattern relationships as there are brands of firewater behind the bar. The Rattlesnake is cozy enough for that febrile first encounter and bustling enough to mask the final tearful breakup.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/bestindfw/nightlife_dn.html

7 Courses at Fearing’s

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By JOHN DeMERS

Dallas chef Dean Fearing welcomed me into his new home last night. Well, he’s actually been the face and the name behind Fearing’s at the Ritz-Carlton for two years now; but after spending a quarter-century associated with the Mansion on Turtle Creek, it’s going to be a while before his new digs start feeling the least bit old.
One of the “fathers” of New Southwestern Cuisine, or New Texas Cuisine, or whatever somebody decides to call it next, Fearing is respected and celebrated for his food almost daily. Like “Founding Brothers” Robert Del Grande in Houston, Stephan Pyles in Dallas and arguably one or two other chefs, he has the advantage of having given us a brand-new category – one at which he, quite naturally, excels. Now, however, having made the break with his old home and set up a comfortable new one, Fearing doesn’t rely on the same labels anymore. He talks a lot about cooking “without borders,” which (Lou Dobbs notwithstanding) is an immigration reform to be devoutly wished.
The new place isn’t actually one atmosphere but seven – that’s what Fearing calls them, “atmospheres.” Some inside, some outside. Some more for food, some more for drink. Some more refined and quiet, others like my favorite – called Dean’s Kitchen, strewn about the open, active space of that name – loud and spirited. In the course of a seven-course dinner last night, the soundtrack included Beatles (“I Want to Hold Your Hand,” no less!), Cream, Kinks, Tommy James and the Shondells, and Jimi Hendrix. Since I’m a child of ‘60s music, that’s really excellent for my digestion.
Fearing’s hyper-talented chef de cuisine Eric Dreyer (a Dallas native who spent many years working in California) and wine director Paul Botamer teamed up to produce a menu that just wouldn’t stop – not merely in one thing following another but in one surprise or delight following the one right before. Some of the wine pairings, in particular, were things I’d never tasted or even heard of. Many serious wine guys in Houston could do the same, I’m sure. It’s just they so seldom do.
Here’s the squeal-filled roller coaster of a menu, along with the wines chosen to showcase each dish perfectly. And let me add that because I sat right by the open kitchen, there was always enough sound and motion to serve as my own personal dinner theater.
Grade A Big-Eye Tuna Duo: a tartare with sesame sushi rice and shiso/mint puree, plus a sashimi with crushed mango, crystallized ginger and spicy ponzu. Like sushi except with more intriguing flavors. Nicolas Joly Savennieres, Les Trois Sacres 2006 – an intense, golden, almost apple cider-like chenin blanc from France’s Loire Valley.
Dean’s Tortilla Soup with South of the Border Flavors, described by Fearing as “more like we made back in the kitchen, more Mexican.” Anytime you hear such words, the result will be good, though I doubt they really used to cut the chicken in those tiny, too-perfect white cubes. Becker viognier, Texas, 2008. Still, on a good year, the best viognier I’ve ever tasted.
Barbecued Shrimp Taco With Mango-Pickled Red Onion Salad and Smoky Citrus Vinaigrette. Already a Fearing’s classic, with some mysterious yarn about supplying the restaurant’s organic ketchup to Sonny Bryan’s BBQ joint in Dallas so they can make the sauce. Domaine Ott Rose from Provence, 2008. Almost wonderful enough to make me ever think of ordering a rose.
Elephant Trunk Sea Scallops (from near Gloucester, Mass.) With Shredded Short Ribs and Foie Gras/Sweet Potato Puree, Royal Trumpet Mushroom Ragout and Fennel Chips. With several versions of seafood and meat in this dish, the wine was Writer’s Block Counoise 2007 (a lesser known of the 13 grapes in my beloved Chateauneuf-du-Pape), made in California’s Lake Country.
Smoked Pheasant on Barbecued Cauliflower/Pheasant Chorizo Ragout with Charred Corn Tortilla Wrap and Green Chili Mojo. A sleeper of a dish, not one I would have thought to order. Puts cauliflower in a whole new light – geez, now I have my life’s first cauliflower craving. Robert Foley Charbono, Napa Valley, 2007. Always reminds me of Cher Bono, unfortunately. An Italian grape wiped out of Italy by phylloxera in the 1800s, now grown only in small patches in California.
Maple/Black Peppercorn Soaked Buffalo Tenderloin on Anson Mills Jalapeno Grits and Crispy Butternut Squash Taquito. Any dish that comes with a taquito is okay with me, especially if it’s this Fearing’s signature. I just wish they’d call it Bison, because the animal is no more a buffalo than the “Indians” Columbus met were from India. Quinta do Crasto Red, from the Duero in Portugal, 2007. A little-known, meat-friendly wine from an area more famous for its ports. Any port in a storm, I always say.
Warm Chocolate Caramel Cake with Chocolate Fried Pies and Mike’s “PayDay” Ice Cream. How often in adulthood does anyone give us not one, not two, but three childhood favorites on a single dessert plate? I especially like it when fancy, expensively trained chefs fry me up a pie! Rotta Black Monnuka from Templeton, Calif., 2006. A fortified dessert wine made from a weird Spanish grape now being grown in the Golden State.
http://houstonartsweek.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/7-courses-at-fearings/

Pat Sharpe of Texas Monthly lists her 10 favorite restaurants

by Press

One thing you can count on: Chef Dean Fearing did not become the star of the Dallas dining scene by truly being the simple, aw-shucks country boy he expertly prtrays when making the rounds of the tables in the dazzling dining rooms of the Ritz-Carlton. He has a steel-trap intelligence, which has calculated exactly what diners want when they come to the fanciest hotel in the glitziest city in the Lone Star State. He knows, for instance, that a lot of them still crave the classy Southwestern and Mexican-accented dishes that made him famous way back in the eighties, when he put the Mansion on Turtle Creek on the map – robust creations like a mesquite grilled, molasses-mopped prime ribeye. He’s all about big monster flavors and upscale redos of the rootsy dishes. But he also knows that the denizens of North Dallas, women in particular, welcome the caloric restraint of dishes like sashimi-like sliced hamachi with an avocado-wasabi puree and crisp matchsticks of Asian pear. There’s something for everyone. And they all like lolling around on cushy banquettes in the main dining room, among the acres of honey onyx and African mahogany paneling.

(From November 2009) As one of only two restaurants in the country to be included on Hotels magazine’s list of Great Hotel Restaurants of 2009, Fearing’s finds itself in the exceedingly well-heeled company of such destinations as the Loggia, in Florence, and Lung King Heen, at the Four Seasons Hong Kong. And while its posh setting contributes greatly to the dining experience, it’s the food that really matters. We firmly believe that there might be revolution in the streets if chef Dean were to remove his famed lobster bisque from the menu, what with its warm coconut milk, sizzling rice, and lobster wonton floating on top. We salivate as we recall our fabulous entrée of mesquite-grilled wild salmon (from the Bay of Fundy, no less) with a spectacular peach barbecue sauce.
http://www.texasmonthly.com/food/dining/reviews/50/646817071/alpha

Fearing’s Restaurant Named #1 Hotel Restaurant in the United States

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Top U.S. Hotels, Resorts & Spas for 2009

“By far the best in Dallas,” this two-year-old has soared to the top of our survey, voted the No. 1 Hotel in the U.S.; it’s located “in the heart of Uptown”, the “hottest area” for dining and nightlife due in part to the “extraordinary”, “last-meal-worthy” “haute Texan” fare at the onsite Fearing’s Restaurant (voted No.1 for Dining in this Survey as well) and the adjacent “see-and-be-seen” Rattlesnake Bar; wallow in “fabulous luxury”, with “plush” rooms, “perfect service” (“the staff calls you by name”) and a “divine spa”, then “rob a bank to pay” the bill.

Overall Score 29 out of 30 (the highest and only 29 points in the survey)