Stephen Montoya
The newly soon-to-be open Whiskey Cake Kitchen and Bar, located at 2849 Heritage Trace Parkway, is preparing to wow your tastebuds with libations and fare made with fresh, local ingredients.
Craft cocktails and farm-fresh comfort food have become the calling card of Whiskey Cake, which first opened in Plano in 2010. One of the FB Society's first concepts, Whiskey Cake now boasts 11 locations, one in Oklahoma City, one in Florida, and nine in Texas.
The new spot, north of Fort Worth proper, is said to be the biggest in the franchise, which boasts seating for 350 guests, and four lounges.
Reclaimed wood adorns the walls and soffits of this new eatery, which carries an excellent balance of modern design and rustic accents.
Old school barn pulleys turned into a chandelier greet attendees in the foyer, which is decorated with shelves filled with vintage items from the past. After passing through the entrance, the first thing people will see is Whiskey Cakes’ giant two-story bar back, which has room for over 250 labels. Although empty for our arrival, this section of the bar will offer so many variations of whiskey, bartenders need a ladder to reach the top row.
In the main dining room, high back tables line up between traditional booths, outlined by a series of four top tables all made from reclaimed wood.
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“We are big on our three Rs, which is reuse, repurpose, recycle,” Whiskey Cake general manager Tim Trimble said during a tour of the new digs earlier this week. “And then we will sell candles that are made from used whiskey bottles as well. That's one of our signatures.”
Per the menu, Whiskey Cake offers variations on popular craft cocktails and farm-fresh comfort foods. All of Whiskey Cake’s flavors, ingredients, and culinary ideas “come straight from the farm.” From the garnish in the drinks to the spices on the plates, everything on the menu is fresh. Whiskey Cake even has a hydroponic grow system located outside of the restaurant that will produce fresh ingredients to be used in various dishes and drinks on the menu.
Diners can start off with an appetizer of goat cheese fondue, crab fritters, or even an order of deviled eggs. For the main course try a rotisserie farm bird (chicken), a wood grilled salmon, a harvest shepherd's pie, or some shrimp and grits to name a few options.
Now, if you’re like me, dessert isn't usually what I gravitate towards when I go out to eat, but with Whiskey Cake, dessert is king, especially the restaurant’s namesake plate. The actual whiskey cake itself is made with sticky toffee cake, bourbon anglaise, spiced pecans, and housemade whipped cream. I’m not exaggerating when I say this is one of the best desserts I’ve ever tasted. In fact, according to Whiskey Cakes’ culinary director, Nick Walker, whiskey cake is so popular, it outsells the rest of the menu items three to one.
“It’s because we use the freshest ingredients to make a whiskey cake with,” he says. “You can never underestimate how powerful a housemade whipped cream is. That’s what I think really pushes the flavor profiles over the top.”
Although there will be some changes in the menu in the next six months, Walker verified that Whiskey Cake sources most of its ingredients from local vendors, and small producers for things like the restaurant’s herbs and vegetables.
“When and where we can, we try to really make sure we're supporting those farmers and little guys enough,” Walker says.
Outside of the vegetables, Whiskey Cake is all about using smoke to create unique flavors.
“The majority of our items will have some format of touching the wood-fire grill," he says. "We use post oak and mesquite and we have really simple products ... simple dishes with an elevated chef's touch to it and we try to make sure that the wood fire, the caliber of the product speaks for itself.”
Stephen Montoya
The idea of locally sourced ingredients also plays into Whiskey Cakes’ cocktail program headed up by concept beverage manager Alan Dean.
“We juice all our own juices,” he says. “We have our own syrup infusions. We take it all very, very seriously. We invest a lot of time and effort finding sources that can give us a lot of really good fruit and veg to juice and turn into delicious syrups and stuff like that.”
Whiskey Cake also has a comprehensive barrel program that takes “deserving” managers and bartenders to places like Kentucky to go through the bourbon trail, tasting and looking for the best Whiskey’s to use in this restaurant’s homemade libations.
“Right now, between the different locations, we have about 23, 24, 25-barrel picks depending on how quick they move through 'em. We use big names in whiskey and then sometimes we go to little guys that just make really damn good juice and we're like, ‘Hey, we love what you're doing. No one knows you and that's okay,’” Dean says. “They’re really appreciative since it's a lot of exposure.”
The estimated time for this location to open is the beginning of October, given everything falls into place, Tim Trimble says.
“We normally don’t open but one Whiskey Cake a year, so this opening isn’t about us wanting to expand the brand aggressively,” Trimble says. “We take our time, look at an area for a while and begin the process of reaching out to local growers and so on. We are excited to see what the response is when we open in October.”
