The owner of Kitchen LTO, Casie Caldwell, promised her restaurant would resurface after it closed suddenly in West Dallas over the summer. She kept that promise, despite a failed attempt to raise $50,000, and says the restaurant will open Deep Ellum on Oct. 25.
Kitchen LTO is a restaurant like no other in Dallas. It changes chefs every 6 months or so in order to keep fickle Dallas diners interested in a restaurant that never seems to look or feel the same. The restaurant earned the nickname a "permanent pop-up restaurant" and first opened in 2013.
At its new home in Deep Ellum, the top chef -- for now -- will be Josh Harmon. Better get there quickly or else it'll be someone else in the kitchen. That's part of the fun.
The owner added an interesting twist to the Deep Ellum digs: Diners can walk into the kitchen at any time.
Grab your cocktail and go spy on what the chef is working on. It's encouraged, in fact.
Current chef Harmon is from Tennessee and has recently worked at North Texas restaurants FT33, Savor, Driftwood (now closed) and Grace, among others, according to a statement from the restaurant. See Harmon's Kitchen LTO menus below, which include down-home dishes such as poached eggs with red-eye gravy and grits; fried green tomatoes; and garlic fried chicken.
Caldwell said in an interview in July that Kitchen LTO deserved to live on, despite the financial hiccups that that caused its closure in West Dallas. "We did a lot of good for up and coming artists who used this as a platform for their careers," Caldwell said in July. "We raised a lot of money and we served a lot of good food. There's a lot to be celebrated in this."
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A good example: Caldwell and Dallas chef Blythe Beck launched Oak Cliff restaurant Pink Magnolia after Beck worked a shift as Kitchen LTO's top toque. It's a perfect case of where Beck's limited time at the restaurant proved she could front a standalone spot.
Kitchen LTO moves into the former Twenty-Seven space, a short-lived restaurant in Deep Ellum.
Kitchen LTO will be located at 2901 Elm Street in Dallas. kitchenlto.com. Open for dinner Tuesday through Saturday and brunch on Saturdays and Sundays. Lunch comes later.
Editor's note: A previous version of this story named the chef as Jason Harmon. It's Josh Harmon. We regret the error.
