While you weren’t looking, Dallas’ Tango Room steakhouse opened in the Design District

A new restaurant named Tango Room opened on September 17, 2021 in the Dallas Design District, serving steak, pasta and seafood alongside a glitzy bar menu of lobster corndogs and deviled eggs with truffles.

It appeared quietly, after more than a year of waiting.

We named it one of the most exciting restaurants to open in 2020, but that didn’t happen.

It was due to open in April 2020, replacing chef Matt McCallister’s inventive restaurant FT33, which closed in 2018. The Hi Line Drive restaurant is now in new hands: Tango Room comes from Headington Companies, the group that owns the Joule Hotel, Midnight Rambler cocktail bar, Commissary and other bakery and take-out store, as well as the southern restaurant The Porch on Henderson Avenue in Dallas.

Tango Room is the fanciest restaurant in Headington’s portfolio, now that downtown Dallas’ Mirador restaurant has closed. Tango Room has its own sexy take on being a modern steakhouse.

“We took what we loved about the quintessential steakhouse and then gave it our own fingerprints: elevated, unexpected, thoughtful,” says executive chef Kylil Henson. He previously worked at Stephan Pyles Flora Street Cafe and Oak in Dallas and DBGB by Daniel Boulud in Washington, D.C.

Tango Room’s upscale, exclusive vibe mirrors an ultra-luxury trend we’ve seen at other new upscale restaurants in Dallas, like the 17-course, 12-seat Japanese restaurant Shoyo; the $2,200 Nusr-Et steak; and on the 49th floor Italian den Monarch. At all of these places, prices can skyrocket.

Tango Room is small – just 12 booths and a bar – and diners can order a very expensive dinner if they wish. Caviar is $250 and steaks can cost up to $105 per person. Add pan-fried foie gras for $25 or lobster for $28. The large plates, which feed several people, include a $195 40-ounce sirloin steak, served with cauliflower gratin and horseradish cream.

Snacks at the bar are less of a splurge and show a more playful side to the restaurant. Lobster corn dogs are $15 and duck wings are $17.

We should all consider the Tango Burger, which is unlike most other candle burgers in town – and there are plenty of them. This one is a dry-aged beef patty with yuzu aioli, IPA pickles, black truffles, and a Swiss cheese called raclette. It’s $20.

Other items on the menu include steak tartare, bacon steak, celeriac soup, seared salmon and two pastas: tango bolognese, a papardelle dish with whipped burrata and foie gras; and frutti di mare, a dish of spaghetti with candied tomatoes.

In the 17 months since the Tango Room supposedly opened, the Headington team have reinvented the dining room. “You won’t recognize it,” says Michael Siegel, director of food and beverages for Headington Companies.

The team also did “lots and lots of wine collection,” he says. The wine list was created by Simon Roberts, co-owner of the restaurant and owner of Graileys Fine Wines.

The band hopes Tango Room will feel like a secluded restaurant that was worth the wait.

“It feels like both a private club and a restaurant,” says Siegel. “When people come, they look around and say, ‘There’s nothing like Dallas.'”

Tango Room is located at 1617 Hi Line Dr., Dallas. It opened on September 17, 2021. Reservations are recommended and are available on Resy.

For more food news, follow Sarah Blaskovich on Twitter at @sblaskovich.