Haven’t been in a couple years though I regard this as the best overall steakhouse in the DFW area. If you stray away from big hitting napa wines you can find some gems at fair markups. It’s also worth geeking out with Barbara or her staff and they may find some interesting bottles not logged on the list that tend to be very fair in price.
Their winemaker dinners are epic, tastings are always impressive and steaks are outrageously good.
I’ve also tried DRC there a few times and once bought a bottle well below auction value at the time.
I don’t know if in any way part of cause but I believe Texas also has a pretty high liquor sales tax within restaurants. Maybe 10 years ago I think in Houston it was 14% of sales with only 6% allowed to be passed on to customer as add on to bill.
It seems you did get screwed inTexas; but I think Dale’s remarks are spot on if you want to BYO outside of Texas.
I was in a couple of restaurants recently where they did not BYO, and the wines were young. Not my taste, so quietly drank iced tea. There were no winners, but I am way too old to preach so my Lafon Volnay lay undisturbed in my wine bag.
Hah. I just mean that if they dedicate that much to the german-austrian white side of things, then as a steakhouse, you could imagine the rest of the list
Pappas always has a handful of diamonds in the rough on their list price wise. I never have trouble finding something that’s somewhat aged and reasonably priced. And they have the best wine service in the state. I think they have three master somms on the team just between the two Houston locations.
There can be no defense of Texas’ antiquated and anti-consumer wine laws. And frankly, I sense that the reataurant industry, especially good reastaurants with decent lists, aren’t fans either.
In addition to the strange “if you have a liquor liscense, no BYOW, but if you have a beer/wine liscence, it’s OK” policy, the TABC keeps up with the percentage of revenue that a restaurant gets from food versus wine. I’ve had restauranteurs – obviously only those who have very good wine lists – complain that the TABC threatens to lift their restaurant liscence because more than 50% of their revenue comes from alcohol sales, and that they’re really a bar. No these are restaurants that have $40-60 entrest, but they also have very top notch wines (GC Burgs, 1st Growth Bordeaux from mature vintages, etc.) on thier wine list. The restaurant has to cut the number of premium wines on their list to keep food sales ahead of wine sales. I can’t imaing how frustrating that must be. Just serves no one’s interests. Beyond idiotic, etc.
The Bizot wines are about 1,000 USD below retail. And there is plenty of Allemand, Clape, great mature Bordeaux and so on. Young Napa Cabernets are clearly the poorest QPRs on the list in terms of pricing.
From my perspective, corkage is about bringing a bottle that’s not available off the list and more interesting, or at least special in some way. It isn’t about circumventing the mark up on the wine list. It is almost unheard of in France, unless you know the restaurant well or are dining with a winemaker that they know.
I agree that this is probably the best wine list in Texas. Certainly in terms of breadth but I think the pricing is really fair too if you are flexible on what you are looking for.
It’s the only place in Texas you can consistently find Raveneau too…
Someone explained to me, that at least in Maryland, the liquor laws are exactly how the major players want them. I would assume that applies everywhere else as well.
I’m curious how many people do this. I BYOB most times I go out to dinner and never do it. I just can’t picture either me, or the restaurant staff, spending the time on the phone confirming that some specific bottle isn’t on their wine list.
I do recall going to Osteria Mozza once and knowing their policy was no wines on their list, so I deliberately brought a more obscure wine.
And I don’t bring common, recent release wines places. I get not wanting to show up with something that looks like I picked it up at Ralph’s on the way to the restaurant. But calling every time seems like too much to me.
95+% of the time I am bringing a wine to a restaurant as an individual , (a) it’s a wine with considerable age and (b) to a restaurant that doesn’t have a list of aged wines. If I am going to someplace that might (even as a long shot) have the wine I am bringing, I check. But in Westchester Kittle House is about only place I’d bother, and there’s not that many in NYC. But with a list like Pappas I’d check (online or call).
