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Fearing's

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Hattie’s

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Javier's

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Mi Cocina

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Nonna

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Pecan Lodge

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Shinsei

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Sonny Bryan's Smokehouse

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Tei Tei Robata

Bishop Arts District

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Highland Park

Uptown Dallas

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The downtown Dallas Arts District, whose centerpiece is an ultramodern performance center designed by Sir Norman Foster, has given buzz a new meaning. During the preliminary planning the city fought hard—and raised unprecedented funds—for the 68-acre complex, whose completion required some three decades. Then came the long-awaited opening, with a week-long series of celebrations and a flurry of reviews, both positive and negative. Now is the—perhaps most important— postopening period, when the new neighborhood must establish itself in a city more famous for football and corporate headquarters than for Shakespeare and Puccini.

The good news is that from an architectural standpoint, the additions to such Art District heavy-hitters as the I.M. Pei–designed Meyerson Symphony Hall and Renzo Piano’s graceful Nasher Sculpture Center are ambitious and innovative.

The Winspear Opera House (2403 Flora St) created by Foster + Partners, centers on 60-foot-tall glass walled lobby positioned under a steel aluminum-slatted drum intended to deflect the sun and create a cooler microclimate around the house. The bright-red drum rises above the solar canopy like a mod top hat lends a playful touch of color to the district. Inside, the state-of-the-art performance hall has some of the best acoustics in the country; even the stage curtain received special artistic treatment: mixed-media artist Guillermo Kuitca designed an abstraction of the seating plan that was reproduced on the fabric.

Across the street, the Wyly Theatre (2400 Flora St) is much smaller and more contained but no less stunning. Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Prince-Ramus’s sleek theater is clad in aluminum poles of varying sizes, giving the façade an almost fluid texture—like a rippling curtain frozen in space. New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff wrote that these new buildings “sit comfortably alongside older structures like I.M. Pei’s concert hall and Edward Larrabee Barnes’s art museum, extending the conversation across generations as well as contrasting architectural philosophies.”

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Dallas Arts District

The phrase “jewel box of a museum” is certainly overused, but it perfectly fits Dallas’s exquisite Nasher, both inside and out. The small, light-filled museum was designed by Pritzker Prize–winning architect Renzo Piano and opened in 2003. The elegant building with just three galleries and leads into a leafy one-and-a-half-acre garden that was created by landscape architect Peter Walker.

The Nasher contains the private collection of Raymond and Patsy Nasher, both avid collectors of modern and contemporary sculpture, whose holdings feature an array of such big-name artists as Rodin, Brancusi, de Kooning, Giacometti, Matisse and Moore, among many others. In the hands of a lesser architect and landscape artist, the exhibits could have easily become best-of showcases, but the layout of the Nasher and the way the pieces are displayed create a compelling narrative. In one corner of the garden, the massive rust-colored steel slabs of Richard Serra’s My Curves Are Not Mad play off Jonathan Borofsky’s animated Hammering Man, which in turn towers over Magdalena Abakanowicz’s Bronze Crowd. I was familiar with the work of almost all the artists represented at the Nasher and yet left feeling as if I had seen them for the first time. If you have time for only one museum on your Dallas visit, the Nasher should be it. Closed Monday.

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Nasher Sculpture Center

Part of the downtown <a href="https://www.indagare.com/destinations/north-america/texas/dallas/downtown-arts-district-dallas/activities/downtown-arts-district">Arts District,</a> the city’s major art institution, the Dallas Museum of Art, contains everything from ancient Mediterranean artifacts to contemporary art, although some collections are stronger than others (which has led to criticisms of lack of focus). In 2005 three prominent local families bequeathed to the museum more than 800 works of modern and contemporary art, significantly improving its holdings. Don’t miss the large Ancient American Art section, which displays ceramics from the Southwestern U.S., Mexico and Guatemala, gold from Panama, Colombia and Peru, and textiles and ceramics from Peru. Also worth visiting is the contemporary wing, which has several smaller galleries showcasing often-changing exhibits. The large windows of the soaring atrium—where jazz concerts are performed every Thursday evening at 6 and 8 P.M.—are adorned with colorful oversized glass flowers by Dale Chihuly, giving the whole space a charming Alice in Wonderland feeling. Closed Monday.

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Dallas Museum of Art

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The Ritz-Carlton Dallas is an elegant, polished retreat in the heart of Uptown with an excellent restaurant and spacious spa. Read Indagare's review.

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The Ritz-Carlton, Dallas

The Italian Renaissance–inspired estate, built in the 1920s by a cotton mogul, was among the first fanciful constructions in the now mansion-stuffed neighborhood. Rosewood’s Caroline Rose Hunt bought the property in 1979 and over the course of the next decade transformed it into one of the U.S.’s best-known and most beloved hotels.

Designed to feel like a private home—albeit a showy one; you are in Dallas, after all—the Mansion has retained such original details as smooth marble floors, carved-plaster ceilings, stained-glass windows and the lobby’s 32-foot-high marble rotunda. The 143 spacious rooms, including several luxe (some might say over-the-top) suites, contain lots of antiques, original art and plush fabrics, as well as hefty four-posters with curtains, large flower arrangements, sofas; airy Italian-marble bathrooms are stocked with Lady Primrose bath products. Subtle it is not, but many high-profile travelers consider the Mansion the quintessential Dallas property.

The somewhat removed location should not deter visitors who plan to do a lot of sightseeing in the Arts District: the hotel provides guests with complimentary car service to anywhere within a five-mile radius.


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Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek

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Savannah has enjoyed a recent renaissance, and today it is recognized for its wonderful creativity thanks to the flourishing Savannah College of Art and Design. Known as “the Hostess City of the South,” Savannah proudly displays its Southern hospitality, its beautiful architecture, rich history and classic charm, making it the perfect spot to slow down and stay awhile.

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Savannah

Santa Fe rises out of New Mexico’s endless desert landscape like a colorful oasis that teeters between over-the-top kitsch and expressive old soul. This is the destination that left a deep impression on American cultural influencers, including Georgia O’Keeffe, Willa Cather and Bob Dylan.

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Santa Fe

The historic pastel city on the bayou is a place where the tropics meets the American South, where Creole meets Cajun, Haitian meets African, and everyone eats, drinks and dances. The city is teeming with refreshing new energy, and is a destination infused with a French joie de vivre.

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Read about Indagare's curated set of restaurants in Dallas, exploring a range of cuisines and local flavors.

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