Cafe on the Green, the upscale restaurant inside the Four Seasons Resort and Club Dallas at Las Colinas, has suffered an identity crisis for years. Thirty years ago, it was truly a cafe on the hotel's green golf course. Then it became an Asian restaurant, and later, something else entirely. For at least 15 years, it hasn't been located on the green, despite the name.
"Cafe on the Green was a misnomer," says the restaurant's Master Sommelier James Tidwell.
The menu, described by current staffers as "eclectic," and frankly, a little confused, has been quietly put to rest. The resort staff closed the restaurant and reinvented it, both in style and in cuisine, as a trendier spot with more approachable food. LAW restaurant begins accepting reservations on Friday, April 1. And no, this isn't some kind of April Fools.
Change doesn't usually come quickly to any institutional hotel restaurant. Cafe on the Green was a beloved spot for many years. Tidwell is one of the most talented wine minds in the state, and the restaurant received four stars from Dallas Morning News restaurant critic Leslie Brenner in 2012. Yet while Four Seasons country club members will have to adjust to a new menu, the staff was more than ready to give it an overhaul.
"It's time," says Christof Syre, executive chef who has worked at the hotel for 16 years.
Nothing about LAW resembles Cafe on the Green. The name stands for Land, Air and Water, and its much more simple menu is broken up into those three categories.
All the menu items now have a theme: "Texas food," explains chef de cuisine Jonathan Rivera.
That means beer-can chicken, steak salad and a giant tomahawk steak for two, $139, for those who want to splurge. An Akaushi beef burger is dressed simply: house-made mayo, ketchup and cheese.
Before, a burger might have felt casual for the ritzy Cafe on the Green crowd. "Now, it's where we're going: more rustic, a little more informal," Rivera says.
Only a few Cafe on the Green items made it onto the new menu. The beef tartare is one: Regulars might otherwise boycott, chefs said.
Tidwell reworked his famous wine list, slimming it from 700 bottles to nearly 300. Knowing that millennials are drinking more wine and even influencing their parents on what to drink, he reconstructed the list into three sections: Cool Kids, for those who want to experience new wines; Popularity Contest, for people who want brand-name wines they trust such as Caymus and Duckhorn; and Mature Wines, for older, usually more expensive vintages. Anyone who wants to pay big bucks for a special occasion will still find a bottle or two clocking in at more than $2,000.
LAW is still a restaurant for wine geeks like Cafe on the Green was, Tidwell says -- "even moreso, maybe," because his list is now more focused.
Eventually, the staff will debut a new bar, to be called OUTLAW Taproom, which replaces Bar 19 inside the hotel. A new, snackier menu will become available after the Byron Nelson, a spokeswoman says.
"I think people are going to have an easier understanding of our food now," says chef Rivera.
Go inside the new LAW restaurant:
[Editor's note: A former version of this story said Dallas Morning News restaurant critic Leslie Brenner gave Cafe on the Green three stars in 2012. She gave the restaurant four stars. The story has been updated above and we regret the error.]
