Some say Deep Ellum is dead.  The cool bars from year’s past have given way to tattoo parlors and an eternally revolving crop of frightening nightclubs.  Most of the restaurants have bolted too.  Sure, mainstays like the Angry Dog and Adair’s and newcomers like Twisted Root are still there for your hangover food fix but fine dining destinations that used to call Deep Ellum home have either relocated (the original Sambuca) or gone out of business (who can forget the then cutting edge “feed me, wine me” at The Green Room?).  Has the painfully slow resurgence of downtown, mach speed expansion of Uptown, and the snazzy Victory development depleted the old warehouse district of its allure as the go to spot for upscale yet unpretentious fine dining?  The friendly folks at LOCAL would like to answer that with an authoritative not so fast!

LOCAL is the brainchild of chef/owner Tracy Miller and she leads a team of skilled, with it, and attentive individuals that hold fast to the revitalized formula of truly fresh and local ingredients.  This on top of their inspiring mission statement that promises to ‘share a uniquely personal and refined dining experience and to create a lasting memory for their guests night after night’.  Now seriously, when is the last time you saw a restaurant that came out and said they wanted to create a lasting memory for you? 

Within the overly critical circle of trained chefs, there is the highly coveted label as a “chef’s chef”.  Put simply, this is the person that is true to the craft, slaves away at the stove every night, keeps it ‘real’ with their approach and techniques, and subscribes to the notion that doing it the right way will generate the desired results.  Seemingly, in this day and age that badge of honor is rarer than a Cowboys playoff victory (sorry Tony and Jess).  Sad but true!  Chef Miller embodies that prestigious and languishing title serving up some of the realest food in Dallas night after night.

Following the courtesy ramekin full of warmed mixed nuts, every meal at LOCAL should begin with the Fried Green Beans either for yourself or for the table.  Found under the short order (appetizer) section of the menu, these are sourced locally, dipped in a light but potent batter and deep fried.  Served with a smooth and creamy thyme and garlic infused dipping sauce, they are a crunchy and delicious way to work that green veggie into your diet.  These are versatile enough to pair with the libation of your choice but on our most recent visit they talked us into a glass of champagne dropped with 2 tiny scoops of rosemary and grapefruit sorbet.  Let’s see…what word comes to mind..umm, perfect.  Yeah, that’s it.  From there, you can continue through the short order selections then move on to the tall order (main courses) or opt for the Chef’s tasting menu of seven petite courses with or without wine pairings.  If you’ve read our site before, you won’t be shocked to hear that we’ve done it both ways so here’s the rundown.

Our most recent serving started with an amuse bouche of cream of broccoli soup with a swirl of crème fraiche.  Served in a slender shot glass and topped with a foamy head, you can tap into your refined side and resist the urge to take it down in one gulp but Deep Ellum and buttoned up refinement really are a culture clash so bottom’s up buddy!  We followed that with a delightful salad of fried yellow tomatoes.  There’s nothing more irritating than soggy fried anything, especially tomatoes.  No issues here with four thick slices of tomato fried crispy (with no oil residue on the plate) and done where the deliciously and gardeny vegetable kept an al dente presence about it.  It came topped with a pinch of barely sautéed spinach, roasted corn, toothsome cubes of pancetta, and homemade cornbread croutons and a splash of lightly thymed vinny.  If I could meet the local farmer that cultivated these ingredients, I’d buy him a new pair of Dickies. 

From there we moved to the halibut and pork osso bucco.  The fish came crusted with a hazelnut mustard glaze and sat atop a thickly sliced piece of grilled country bread.  Perfectly done halibut really needs very little assistance, particularly when it has complimenting flavor profiles as assertive as hazelnut and whole grain mustard.  However, it was surrounded by a shallow chardonnay broth that not only cut the spice of the mustard but managed to draw out the buttery flavor of the fish and nuts.  A basic technique of wine pairing is called bridging – using the same wine in the cooking that you’re going to drink with the dish.  The Louis Latour chard from France joined dish and wine famously.  In the meat eater world, there’s not a whole lot to hate about pork over grits.  When it’s an all day braised Niman Ranch pork osso bucco and the grits are of the organic Anson Mills stone ground variety with shreds of white cheddar cooked in, slobbering like Pavlov’s dog is not all that uncommon.  Sure, it came with a twig or two of haricot verts and a few chunks of garlic roasted tomatoes but with the fork tender osso drizzled with thickened pan jus seeping into the grits, vegetables are placed into that cavern of my brain that is eternally stricken with convenient amnesia.

Chef Miller uses Jonah crab meat in her cakes.  Jonah is a cousin to the Peeky Toe crab and has become very popular in recent years due to its abundance and sweetness.  Sign of a great crab cake?  Crabonomics 101 tells us the key is very little filler.  If I’m applying percentages, Chef Miller’s are in the 90% crab range.  They were sided with Napa cabbage slaw and a nice basil cream sauce.  It was such a welcomed change of pace from the typical overpowering remoulade sauce you get with most crab cakes.

Butternut squash in general has become increasingly popular and finding some pureed and inside a ravioli is quite common as well.  And the classic sauce pairing to this winter dish is a brown butter sage sauce, right?  So, while this dish didn’t get high marks for innovation, simple dishes done extremely well kind of underscore what LOCAL is all about.  The ravioli holding just enough of the preferred al dente-ness, the squash just the right consistency, the butter maybe having a little more fat content than the stuff you use at home, and the earthy fresh sage providing the perfect balance to the sweetness of the squash. 

Two perfectly cooked scallops came resting atop a timbale of frisee and bacon bits.  A citrus butter glaze pulled everything into harmony and a pairing of Groth Chardonnay was an ideal match. 

The petite filet was, of course, raised locally and naturally.  Though I can’t tell a difference taste wise, it does tickle my green side to know I’m eating responsibly raised steer.  This cut was nice and tender served over creamy mascarpone polenta and topped with a cascade of sautéed wild mushrooms and roasted garlic cognac sauce. 

We have a weakness for anything chocolate and when you follow the Reeses playbook and add peanut butter to it, it takes things to a whole other level.  I’m going to describe these as chocolate cake cookies stuffed with whipped smooth peanut butter and cream and stacked on top of each other to form a tower of goodness. 

The wine list makes up in quality what it might lack in quantity.  For example, under whites there is only one pinot grigio listed.  Bet you guessed it would be Santa Margherita right?  Thankfully no.  Instead it’s a lovely Santi Sortesele from Alsace.  3 Cali chards, some tremendous white burgundies and even a couple of premier cru Chablis’ round out the ivory selections.  There are only six Pinot Noirs and all hail from the US with the superstar being the unbelievable Etude Heirloom.  There are a few big name US cabs (nickel & nickel, stags leap, and the underrated Buehler…Buehler…Buehler..) but there’s a very impressive list of Aussie reds both Shiraz and blends that are worth uncorking. 

Housed in the first floor of the old Boyd Hotel, LOCAL exudes the guts and unpretentious sophistication that this part of the city used to be known for.  The scene is a funky, sleek and dazzling combination of raw and refined .... exposed brick, modern clean lines, original artwork everywhere, dramatic drape partitions, shag rugs, and low soothing lighting.  It was important to keep the history (said to include frequent stop overs from notorious outlaws Bonnie & Clyde as well as famed jazz musicians Blind Lemon Jefferson and Bo Diddly) and integrity of the hotel in tact while also creating a modern space for Chef Miller to spin out her clean and composed offerings.  It’s a moving forward while keeping an eye on where you’ve been kind of thing and that is evident by both the space and her cooking. 

A city can never have too many chefs like Tracy Miller or too many restaurants like LOCAL.  While many chefs here and across the country have marketed themselves and their restaurants as fresh ingredient focused and as a friend to the local farmer, few actually have those beliefs ingrained in their fiber as the only way to do business.  LOCAL offers hope that while many Deep Ellum fine dining spots from the past are now deceased or deported, the right place with the right energy and spirit can not only thrive but blaze a trail for others to follow.