photo by Olaf Growald
Steak Guide 2019
It’s been an interesting road for the Wicked Butcher. Perhaps not rocky or windy, but peculiar. You may recall that we featured the highly anticipated restaurant on the cover of our November issue. It was a beautiful medium-rare tomahawk we photographed during a private tasting with the executive chef in October; it made for an excellent cover. At the time, we were told the restaurant would open its doors to the public by Nov. 1 — considering I attended a press preview last night, this obviously did not happen.
As a journalist, I felt like we had misled our readers. While we were leading the pack in terms of covering what has become one of the city’s most exciting new spots, having a steak on our cover that no one could try was kind of a cruel tease.
One can claim the restaurant has been open the past couple months, but this current iteration is a shell of the restaurant we’re about to see come Jan. 29, when the steakhouse officially opens to the public. While patrons and guests of the hotel can currently order a six-ounce steak and frites at its lobby-level dining space, this is hardly the 24-ounce porterhouse they will serve in the basement, where the restaurant will serve dinner.
Bottom line: It’s difficult to open a restaurant, and setbacks and delays are the norm, especially when the restaurant is dependent upon the opening of the hotel in which it resides — the Sinclair had a ribbon cutting Thursday afternoon. So, I gladly washed away the bad taste in my mouth — caused largely by our own naivety— with a whiskey sour and attended last night’s press event.
The Wicked Butcher is Dallas-based DRG Concepts’ latest Fort Worth venture — after they brought in Wild Salsa from the other side of the metroplex — and the first Fort Worth original. The restaurant certainly brought out the swank last night, giving members of the press a family-style dinner that included steak tartare, oysters, crème brulee, and, of course, beautiful cuts of meat. We even got a brief spiel from Richard Triptow, the restaurant’s current executive chef — who was not the executive chef when we first tried the steaks in October of last year.
The steaks were perfectly cooked — medium rare was the only way they were served last night, which I was more than okay with — the mac and cheese was some of the best I’ve ever had, and the wine pairings were fantastic. So, it’s hard not to prematurely recommend the place when it opens to the public next Wednesday.
