There’s something delicious brewing in North Dallas. The Theodore, the much anticipated new restaurant concept at NorthPark Center opens on Monday, November 16. Led by James Beard Award-winning chef Tim Byres, Christopher Jeffers and Christopher Zielke (the team behind SMOKE, Chicken Scratch, The Foundry, Bar Belmont, Bolsa and Bolsa Mercado), The Theodore honors the dynamic spark that followed Teddy Roosevelt over the course of his lifetime.

Each room within the restaurant has been thoughtfully curated by art and design team Lou Verne – giving The Theodore a spirit of its own. Filled with hidden rooms, vintage furniture, hand painted murals, and whimsical curiosities from fashion photographer Maxine Helfman’s personal collection, The Theodore has a stylized quirkiness with of a hint nostalgia and charm that speaks to lovers of a time when things were handmade with integrity.

I was invited to stop in last night to a soft opening event and everything we tasted was absolutely delicious. Starters like Bone-in lamb shank pie, toast with white anchovy, green olive and tomato were flavored well and showed exceptional attention to detail in technique and taste. We also loved the Pheasant salad with grapefruit supreme, duck fat croutons which turned out to be a sizable salad on its own. Another great shared option fresh oysters with rye bread, mignonette and cocktail sauce.

The mains on the menu range from pizzas to sandwiches and a few heartier bites in between. Pizzas topped with inventive items like salmon pastrami intrigued as the pies flew by. We settled on sampling The Theodore burger topped with cheese and the traditional accouterment. The burger was super juicy and was sided with a fresh butter lettuces salad that I wish would have been fries!

Pastry chef Marlene Duke, who hails from the Ritz-Carlton has some sweet surprises up her chefs coat for dessert.  A Crab Apple toffee cake wowed and was topped table side with even more hot toffee sauce. The crispy crust surrounded Chocolate torte was light enough to devour in seconds and was sprinkled with a good amount of sea salt. Chocolate cookies warm from the oven showed up last and were the crispy, crunchy kind I was hoping for.